An Order made under section 93(3) of the Scotland Act 1998 updates the legal arrangements that allow certain devolved functions to be exercised by a Minister of the Crown. The Scotland Act 1998 (Specification of Functions and Transfer of Property etc.) (Amendment) Order 2026 was made on 14 October 2026, laid before Parliament and the Scottish Parliament on 16 October, extends to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and comes into force on 5 December 2026. The measure is procedural rather than programmatic. It does not itself create new forestry controls or move functions automatically; instead, it amends the 2019 specification order so that more of the Scottish Ministers' forestry and plant health functions can be included in arrangements made under section 93.
Section 93 is a technical part of the devolution settlement, but the practical effect is straightforward. Only functions that have been specified for the purpose can be exercised by a Minister of the Crown under these arrangements, so amending the list matters wherever operational responsibility may need to be coordinated across administrations. According to the Order, the new additions focus on tree health, plant pests, forestry material and the operators who handle it. That points to a narrow but important administrative aim: making sure the legal basis for shared delivery matches the way plant health controls work in practice.
A notable part of the amendment is the insertion of new definitions into article 2 of the 2019 Order. 'Forestry material' is defined broadly enough to cover round wood, processed wood products such as chips and shavings, trees and detached bark. 'Forestry professional operator' is then tied to activities including importing, moving, storing, aggregating, exporting, treating or marking relevant material, and handling tree pests for testing, scientific or educational purposes. The Order also adds definitions for 'tree', 'tree pest' and 'wood packaging material'. That drafting matters because it fixes the scope of the functions now being specified and reduces uncertainty about which operators and materials fall within the section 93 mechanism.
The substantive change sits in article 3 of the 2019 Order. The amendment 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 goes further than naming individual instruments. A new paragraph also captures 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 policy terms, that gives the specification order wider reach across forestry plant health work.
The amendment also deletes the previous reference to the Scottish Ministers' functions under section 44 of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009. The explanatory note says that the reference is being removed because there are no functions under section 44 that could be exercised by way of arrangements under section 93 of the Scotland Act 1998. This is a technical correction with a clear legal purpose. It removes material from the 2019 Order that did not fit the section 93 model, rather than altering the live plant health or forestry powers available under Scots law.
For forestry businesses, timber movers, treatment providers and laboratories, the immediate rules on 5 December do not change simply because this Order takes effect. The duties that apply under plant health and official control legislation remain where they are unless and until specific section 93 arrangements are used. The practical change is that the statute book now allows a broader set of Scottish functions to be exercised by a Minister of the Crown where an arrangement is in place. That may assist administrative coordination in areas such as tree pest controls, movement of timber and wood packaging material, and related official checks.
The explanatory note says no full impact assessment has been prepared because no, or no significant, impact on the private, voluntary or public sector is foreseen. That is consistent with the narrow purpose of the instrument, which is to amend devolution machinery rather than impose a fresh regulatory burden. The wider significance is institutional. From 5 December 2026, the section 93 framework will more clearly cover the tree health and forestry functions most likely to require joined-up administration, while the statute book is also cleaned up by removing a reference with no operative role in that system.