Government of Wales Act 2006


The Government of Wales Act 2006 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed the then-National Assembly for Wales and allows further powers to be granted to it more easily. The Act creates a system of government with a separate executive drawn from and accountable to the legislature.

Provisions

The Act has the following provisions:
The bill received Royal assent on 25 July 2006.

Schedule 5 of the Act

Schedule 5 of the Act describes the 20 "Fields" and "Matters" in which the National Assembly for Wales has Legislative competence i.e. the ability to pass Assembly Measures. A Field is a broad subject area, such as education and training, the environment, health and health services, highways and transport, or housing. A Matter is a specific defined policy area within a Field.
The Assembly can gain further legislative competence by the amendment of Schedule 5. There are two ways in which this can happen: either as a result of clauses included in legislation passed by an Act of Parliament at Westminster, or by Legislative Competency Orders granted by Parliament in response to a request from the National Assembly itself. The result of either method is to amend any of the 20 Fields by inserting specific Matters. The Assembly then has competence to pass legislation on those Matters.
Schedule 5 is regularly updated as result of these two processes. An up-to-date version of the Schedule is available on the National Assembly's website.

Fields of Schedule 5

The Government of Wales Act 2006 was criticised by Plaid Cymru for not delivering a fully-fledged parliament.

UK Legislation