1.—(1) These Regulations may be cited as the National Assistance (Sums for Personal Requirements) (England) Regulations 2001 and shall come into force on 9th April 2001.
(2) These Regulations extend to England only(1).
Although section 22(4) of the National Assistance Act 1948 (“the 1948 Act”) extends to both Scotland and Wales, the Secretary of State no longer has powers to prescribe sums for personal requirements under the said section in respect of either country. As respects Wales, see article 2 of and Schedule 1 to the National Assembly for Wales (Transfer of Functions) Order 1999 (S.I. 1999/672), which transfers all the functions of the Secretary of State under the 1948 Act, so far as they are exercisable in relation to Wales, to the National Assembly for Wales. As respects Scotland, the powers of the Secretary of State to prescribe sums for personal requirements under section 22(4) of the 1948 Act in respect of persons for whom accommodation is provided under Part III of the 1948 Act are applied, by section 87(3) and (4) of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 (c. 49) (as amended by paragraph 10(13) of Schedule 9 to the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 (c. 19)), to persons for whom accommodation is provided under either the 1968 Act or section 7 of the Mental Health (Scotland) Act 1984 (c. 36); see however section 53 of the Scotland Act 1998 (c. 46), which provides that functions of a Minister of the Crown under an Act passed before the 1998 Act, in so far as they are exercisable within devolved competence, shall be exercisable by the Scottish Ministers instead of by the Minister of the Crown. The powers to prescribe sums for personal requirements under section 22(4) of the 1948 Act are within devolved competence for the purposes of section 53 of the 1998 Act.