Section 27: Power to specify authorities
184.Subsection (1) allows the Secretary of State to amend the list of specified authorities in Schedule 6. The Secretary of State does this by making regulations. The regulations may also amend Chapter 1 so as to make consequential or supplemental provision (subsection (3)). Subsection (4) provides that a draft of these regulations must be approved by each House of Parliament. However, where an amendment to Schedule 6 is required only because a specified authority has ceased to exist, has changed its name or transferred its functions, the regulations will become law without prior Parliamentary approval (although they could be annulled by a resolution by either House of Parliament (subsections (5) and (6)).
185.Subsection (2) states that the power to amend Schedule 6 cannot be exercised in order to extend the duty in section 26(1) to the functions and bodies listed in paragraphs (a) to (j).