3.—(1) The person from time to time holding office as Secretary of State for the Environment shall by virtue of that office—
(a)be Minister of Public Building and Works, so long as any property remains vested in that Minister; and
(b)be First Commissioner of Works, so long as the Commissioners of Works have not been dissolved by Order in Council under the Minister of Works Act 1942;
and section 5(1) to (3) and (5) of that Act as set out with adaptations in Schedule 2 to this Order shall continue to apply to him as Minister of Public Building and Works.
(2) The person who at the coming into operation of this Order is Secretary of State for the Environment and his successors shall be, by that name, a corporation sole (with a corporate seal), but so that anything done by or in relation to any other Secretary of State for the Secretary of State for the Environment as a corporation sole shall have effect as if done by or in relation to the Secretary of State for the Environment.
(3) The corporate seal of the Secretary of State for the Environment shall be authenticated by the signature of a Secretary of State, or of a Secretary to the Department of the Environment, or of a person authorised by a Secretary of State to act in that behalf.
(4) The corporate seal of the Secretary of State for the Environment shall be officially and judicially noticed, and every document purporting to be an instrument made or issued by the Secretary of State for the Environment and to be sealed with that seal authenticated in the manner provided by paragraph (3) above, or to be signed or executed by a Secretary to the Department of the Environment or a person authorised as aforesaid, shall be received in evidence and be deemed to be so made or issued without further proof, unless the contrary is shown.
(5) A certificate signed by the Secretary of State for the Environment that any instrument purporting to be made or issued by him or by any of the other Ministers mentioned in Article 2(1) above was so made or issued shall be conclusive evidence of that fact.
(6) No stamp duty shall be chargeable on any instrument made by, to or with the Secretary of State for the Environment.
4. In Schedule 2 to the Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967, as amended by the Parliamentary Commissioner Order 1970(1), after the entry for the Department of Employment there shall be inserted the entry “Department of the Environment”.
(1970 III, p. 5288).