Made by His Majesty in Council at Buckingham Palace on 14 October 2026, the Scotland Act 1998 (Specification of Functions and Transfer of Property etc.) (Amendment) Order 2026 updates the 2019 Order that supports section 93 arrangements under the Scotland Act 1998. It was laid before both the UK Parliament and the Scottish Parliament on 16 October 2026 and is due to come into force on 5 December 2026. The immediate purpose is narrow but significant. According to the text of the Order and its explanatory note, the amendment expands the range of Scottish Ministers’ forestry and plant health functions that may be exercised by a Minister of the Crown where arrangements are made under section 93.
This is a devolution instrument, but its practical effect sits in administrative law rather than headline policy change. The Order does not, on its face, introduce a new plant health regime or fresh restrictions on timber movement. Instead, it adjusts the statutory framework that determines which devolved functions can sit within an agreed intergovernmental arrangement. That distinction matters for officials and regulated operators alike. The legal architecture of who may exercise a function can shape how cross-border plant health issues are handled, even where the underlying operational rules remain in the instruments that already govern pests, official controls and forestry movements.
One of the clearest changes is to the interpretation article in the 2019 Order. The amended text now defines forestry material broadly, covering wood with some or all of its natural round surface, wood chips and particles, shavings, sawdust, wood waste and scrap, trees, and detached bark. It also inserts definitions of tree, tree pest and wood packaging material, with paper products excluded from that last category. The Order also introduces the term forestry professional operator. In practical terms, that reaches operators involved in introducing, importing, storing, aggregating, moving, exporting, treating or marking forestry material or wood packaging material in Scotland, as well as those repairing wood packaging material or handling tree pests for testing, scientific, educational, trial or breeding purposes. Those definitions matter because they anchor the scope of the functions being specified.
The operative amendment to article 3 of the 2019 Order is the centre of the change. The new text adds the Scottish Ministers’ functions under Regulation (EU) 2016/2031 on protective measures against plant pests, Regulation (EU) 2017/625 on official controls, and the Plant Health (Official Controls and Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Regulations 2019. It then goes further by adding a broader residual category. New paragraph (3) brings in any other function of the Scottish Ministers so far as it relates to monitoring and controlling tree pests, promoting tree health, moving forestry material, or regulating forestry professional operators. In effect, the amended Order no longer relies only on a closed list of named instruments when dealing with this area.
The 2026 instrument also removes an earlier reference in the 2019 Order to the Scottish Ministers’ functions under section 44 of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009. The explanatory note states that this reference is being deleted because there are no functions under section 44 that could be exercised by way of arrangements under section 93 of the Scotland Act 1998. That is a technical correction, but it serves an important legal purpose. A specification order of this kind needs to identify exercisable functions accurately. Removing a provision that the explanatory note says could not lawfully operate under section 93 reduces avoidable uncertainty in the devolution framework.
For forestry businesses, timber operators, nurseries, laboratories and firms dealing with wood packaging material, the immediate effect appears administrative rather than front-line. The amending Order does not set out new inspection frequencies, new charging rules or new plant health conditions. Its role is to determine which existing Scottish functions may be exercised by a Minister of the Crown where a section 93 arrangement is in place. That means the main compliance duties for operators will still be found in the underlying plant health and official controls legislation, not in this Order itself. Even so, organisations operating across borders will want to note that the statutory basis for joint handling of certain tree health and forestry matters is being widened from 5 December 2026.
The explanatory note also records that no full impact assessment has been produced because no impact, or no significant impact, on the private, voluntary or public sector is foreseen. That is consistent with the character of the instrument. It is primarily a machinery amendment, even though the subject matter touches operational areas such as pest control, timber movements and regulated handling of wood packaging material. Taken together, the amendments bring the 2019 Order into closer alignment with current forestry and tree health administration in Scotland. From 5 December 2026, the section 93 framework will more clearly cover tree pests, tree health, forestry material movements and the regulation of forestry professional operators, while removing a climate change reference that the explanatory note says was not usable in this context.