Commentary on provisions of Act Section 31: Implementation power
This section ensures that the Agreements can be fully and effectively implemented in line with the UK’s obligations under those Agreements. It does so by way of granting a power to make appropriate regulations to implement those agreements or to deal with matters arising from or related to those Agreements.
	Subsection (1) provides a Minister of the Crown, a devolved authority, or a Minister of the Crown acting jointly with one or more devolved authority, with a power to make secondary legislation for the purposes of implementing the relevant Agreements (which are defined in subsection (7) below). The power applies to those Agreements as they are updated which allows for the power to be used to implement changes to the Agreements. This power also allows Ministers to make provision to deal with matters arising from or related to these Agreements; for example, decisions made by the UK-EU Partnership Council.
	Subsection (2) provides that secondary legislation made under the power in this section is capable of doing anything an Act of Parliament can do.
	Subsection (3) provides that the power can be used to reimplement any aspect of the Agreements, where it has already been implemented. This allows the power to be used to make more specific and detailed implementation where the Agreements have already been implemented under the general implementation section.
	Subsection (4) places a series of restrictions on the power. The power cannot be used to: impose or increase taxation; make retrospective provision; create a relevant criminal offence; amend or repeal key devolution legislation (with limited exceptions) or amend, repeal or revoke the Human Rights Act 1998 and any legislation made under that Act.
	Subsection (5) provides for an exception to the restriction on making retrospective provision, by stating that this restriction does not apply if a regulation is made under this power in connection with the replacement and/or modification of any references to the Agreements, where this happens after a final legal revision.
	The scrutiny procedures, and restrictions for devolved authorities, for this power are set out in Schedule 5.
	Subsection (7) defines "relevant agreements" for this section. This includes any agreements covered by Article 2.4.4. of Chapter 2 of Title XI of Part 2 of the TCA, which envisages a competition cooperation agreement.