The Act – Commentary on Sections General Sections 5 to 7: Ancillary provision, commencement and short title
27.Section 5 provides that the Scottish Ministers may exercise various ancillary powers by order to give full effect to the Act.
28.Section 6 provides that sections 5 to 7 come into force the day after Royal Assent. The Scottish Ministers may make a commencement order bringing the remaining provisions of the Act into force on a day they specify in the order. A commencement order may include transitional, transitory or savings provisions. The changes to the law are not retrospective. The Act will not affect documents already executed or delivered before it comes into force. The current law will continue to apply to those documents. The argument that counterpart execution was recognised from at least the eighteenth century on (see paragraph 5) will remain open for consideration if ever necessary.
29.Section 7 provides the short title, which is the name by which the Act may be cited.