These notes refer to the Welsh Elections (Coronavirus) Act 2021 (asc 2)
which received Royal Assent on 16 March 2021
36.
Before section 36A of the 1983 Act comes into force, section 36 of the1983 Act can be relied upon by the Welsh Ministers to make rules about the conduct of local authority elections. The negative procedure applies to rules made under section 36 of the 1983 Act (see section 36(7) of the 1983 Act).
Section 13 –Effect of this Act on existing power to make provision about elections
37.
The purpose of this section is to clarify that the Welsh Ministers’ existing powers to make provision about the conduct of elections under section 13 of the 2006 Act and sections 36 and 36A of the Representation of the People Act 1983 are unaffected by provision made in the Act about elections.
38.
Section 13(1) of the Act clarifies that section 13(7) of the 2006 Act, which requires orders made under section 13 of the 2006 Act to be subject to the affirmative procedure, does not apply to orders of the kind specified in section 12 of the Act. The made affirmative procedure applies to orders to which section 12 applies.
39.
Section 13(2) clarifies that where rules of the kind specified in section 12 of the Act are made under section 36A, section 36A(10) of the 1983 Act (requirement for affirmative procedure) does not apply and the made affirmative procedure applies by virtue of section 12(3) of the Act.
Section 14 – Modifications of the 2007 Order
40.
Section 13 of the 2006 Act gives the Welsh Ministers the power to make provision by order about the conduct of Senedd elections and the National Assembly for Wales (Representation of the People) Order 2007 (“the 2007 Order”) is an order made under that section.
41.
This section modifies certain provisions of the 2007 Order for the purposes of the 2021 election.
42.
Subsection (3) modifies article 84(2) of the Conduct Order and the point at which a person becomes a candidate in the election. This is currently tied to the dissolution of the Senedd. Section 3 of the Act shortens the dissolution period. Subsection (4) decouples the time at which a person becomes a candidate from the point of dissolution. The effect of the modification to article 84(2) is that, for the purposes of Part 3 of the 2007 Order, a person becomes a candidate 21 days before 6 May (calculated by disregarding certain days including a day that is a Saturday or a Sunday or a bank holiday). This is the date on which the Senedd would have dissolved for the ordinary general election on 6 May had section 3 of the Act not made provision to shorten the dissolution period. A person remains as a candidate for the purposes of Part 3 of the 2007 Order (barring their resignation or deselection, for example) even if the election is postponed in accordance with section 6 (or as the case may be, section 8) of the Act to a date later than 6 May 2021.
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