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Legislation (Wales) Act 2019

The Legislation (Wales) Act 2019 (anaw 4) () is an act of the National Assembly for Wales, which is designed to provide guidance on how to draft and interpret primary and secondary legislation of the Assembly.

Background

In July 2013, the Law Commission announced that it was including a section on the "form and accessibility of the law applicable in Wales" as an advisory project in its twelfth programme of law reform. In 2016, the Law Commission published its final report on the form and accessibility of the law in Wales, recommending

Lord Lloyd-Jones, a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, wrote a document supporting codification.

The draft bill was introduced to the assembly in April 2018.

Dispute with the UK Government

In April 2019, the Solicitor General of England and Wales, Robert Buckland, sent the Counsel General for Wales explaining the UK Government's position that certain provisions of the bill were outside of the legislative competence of the Welsh Assembly: mainly relating to Welsh statutory instruments made under acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

In June 2019, the Counsel General sent the Solicitor General, Lucy Fraser a letter explaining the Welsh Government's position that the lack of an interpretation act with provisions for bilingual statutory instruments, made by the Welsh Government under monolingual acts passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom was problematic.

In August 2019, the Solicitor General, Michael Ellis, sent the Counsel General a letter reiterating the UK Government's position, but explaining that the UK Government would not refer the bill to the Supreme Court.

Provisions

The legislation has provisions:

  • a duty to improve and maintain accessibility of Welsh law
  • making the English and Welsh language texts of a statute of equal status
  • defining how to interpret words and expressions, such as:
  • plurals and singulars
  • gendered pronouns,
  • references to time of day
  • distances
  • grammatical differences
  • defining the day on which the service delivered electronically is deemed to be effected
  • defining how to use the Act together with the Interpretation Act 1978
  • moving the commencement of an act from a commencement order, published separately as delegated legislation, Welsh statutory instruments would now be able to amend the text of the Act itself to insert a date

Amendments

Legislation (Procedure, Publication and Repeals) (Wales) Act 2025

The Legislation (Procedure, Publication and Repeals) (Wales) Act 2025 (asc 3) () made amendments to:

Other developments

The first consolidation act passed as part of the programme to consolidate legislation was the Historic Environment (Wales) Act 2023.

See also

Notes

References