Commentary on Sections Part 3 – Repeals of Welsh Legislation Part 16 – Miscellaneous amendments relating to the Government of Wales Act 1998
193.The 1998 Act provided for the establishment of the National Assembly for Wales. Unlike the devolution arrangements put in place at the same time in Scotland and Northern Ireland, the 1998 Act did not provide for a separation between the legislature and the executive. Instead, the National Assembly was established as a single corporate body, which exercised its functions on behalf of the Crown. This meant that one organisation, the National Assembly, was responsible for discharging both legislative and executive functions.
194.The Assembly assumed the statutory powers and duties that the Secretary of State for Wales had previously exercised. Provision was made for Orders in Council to transfer these mostly executive responsibilities to the Assembly and subsequent Acts of Parliament conferred additional powers on the Assembly.
195.The Assembly could only make secondary legislation, such as orders and regulations, in devolved areas. It could not make primary legislation for Wales, which remained the UK Parliament’s responsibility in both devolved and reserved areas.
196.In June 2005, the Secretary of State for Wales published a White Paper, Better Governance for Wales(22), which included proposals to effect a formal separation between the executive and legislative branches of the Assembly, reform existing electoral arrangements and increase the legislative powers of the Assembly. The 2006 Act gave effect to the broad policy objectives contained in the White Paper proposals. Although it repealed the majority of the 1998 Act, certain provisions continued to be in force.
197.As noted elsewhere in these Explanatory Notes the Act makes several changes to the remaining provisions of the 1998 Act. Part 16 of this Schedule to the Act also makes a number of miscellaneous amendments to the 1998 Act to remove references to obsolete bodies, remove spent transitional provisions, update certain references to other bodies and remove certain amendments that the 1998 Act made to other enactments because these are no longer needed as a result of repeals and substitutions by later Acts. In particular:
198.Paragraph 57 of this Schedule to the Act also repeals certain paragraphs in Schedule 10 to the 2006 Act. Those paragraphs amended the 1998 Act to provide for the transfer of certain functions in relation to forestry and the environment from the (then) National Assembly to the Welsh Ministers. Those functions subsequently fell away upon the creation of the Natural Resources Body for Wales, and the underlying provisions of the 1998 Act were repealed(24). The provisions being omitted by the Act are therefore spent.