Act of Parliament | |
Long title | An Act to consolidate certain enactments relating to the lieutenancies in Great Britain. |
---|---|
Citation | 1997 c. 23 |
Introduced by | Lord Mackay of Clashfern, Lord Chancellor (Lords) |
Territorial extent | England, Wales, and Scotland |
Dates | |
Royal assent | 19 March 1997 |
Commencement | 1 July 1997 |
Other legislation | |
Amended by | S.I. 1997/1992, S.I. 2001/3500 |
Status: Current legislation | |
Text of statute as originally enacted | |
Revised text of statute as amended |
The Lieutenancies Act 1997 (c. 23) is an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom that defines areas that lord-lieutenants are appointed to in Great Britain. It came into force on 1 July 1997.
Prior to the Local Government Act 1888, a Lord-Lieutenant was appointed to each of the counties. However this Act redefined the areas to be combinations of the new administrative counties and county boroughs. In practice the effect was quite minor, with only a few border differences between the historic and new administrative counties.
These areas changed little until the 1965 creation of Greater London and Huntingdon and Peterborough, which resulted in the abolition of the offices of Lord Lieutenant of Middlesex, Lord Lieutenant of the County of London and Lord Lieutenant of Huntingdonshire and the creation of the Lord Lieutenant of Greater London and Lord Lieutenant of Huntingdon and Peterborough.
In 1974 county boroughs and several administrative counties were rearranged in England and Wales. Lieutenancies were also redefined to use the new metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties directly.
Some of these Lieutenancies did not last long, however. By the mid-1990s, another local government reorganisation was underway and many of the non-metropolitan counties in England were re-organised, resulting in the creation of unitary authorities. Most such unitary authorities created from the mid 1990s onwards are legally a non-metropolitan district and a non-metropolitan county which cover the same area and have just one council. It was decided in 1995 that some of these new non-metropolitan counties should not have their own lieutenant, and so provision was made for defining the counties for the purposes of shrievalty and lieutenancy differently from the local government counties with effect from 1 April 1996. In particular, for the abolished counties of Avon, Cleveland and Humberside the lieutenancy areas were re-aligned to generally correspond to the pre-1974 counties. [1]
These provisions for defining counties for the purposes of lieutenancy differently from local government counties were consolidated into the Lieutenancies Act 1997. Although the term is not actually used in the Act, the areas it covers have come to be known as "ceremonial counties". Various amendments to the 1997 Act have been made since 1997 to update these ceremonial counties to be defined in terms of new unitary authorities.
The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 redefined the Lieutenancies not to be based on the then new Scottish Regions but as an approximation of the traditional counties in some places and entirely new creations in others.
Local government in Scotland was further reformed on 1 April 1996 into single-tier authorities designated as "Councils", but the lieutenancies remain mostly matching the pre-1973 counties and cities.
Local government in Wales was reorganised into a single-tier system on 1 Apr 1996 with the authorities designated as "Principal Councils" but nominally described as Cities, Boroughs or Counties. The lieutenancy areas remain based on the system of local government existing from 1974 to 1996.
The Lieutenancies Bill was introduced in the House of Lords by the Lord Chancellor in January 1997, as a consolidation bill, to simplify and replace earlier legislation. [2] It had its second reading soon afterwards. [3] [4] As a consolidation bill it was not subject to debate in the Commons at the second and third readings. [5]
A unitary authority is a local authority responsible for all local government functions within its area or performing additional functions that elsewhere are usually performed by a higher level of sub-national government or the national government.
Inverclyde is one of 32 council areas used for local government in Scotland. Together with the East Renfrewshire and Renfrewshire council areas, Inverclyde forms part of the historic county of Renfrewshire, which currently exists as a registration county and lieutenancy area. Inverclyde is located in the west central Lowlands. It borders the North Ayrshire and Renfrewshire council areas, and is otherwise surrounded by the Firth of Clyde.
A lord-lieutenant is the British monarch's personal representative in each lieutenancy area of the United Kingdom. Historically, each lieutenant was responsible for organising the county's militia. In 1871, the lieutenant's responsibility over the local militia was removed. However, it was not until 1921 that they formally lost the right to call upon able-bodied men to fight when needed.
The administrative geography of the United Kingdom is complex, multi-layered and non-uniform. The United Kingdom, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe, consists of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. For local government in the United Kingdom, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales each have their own system of administrative and geographic demarcation. Consequently, there is "no common stratum of administrative unit encompassing the United Kingdom".
Ceremonial counties, formally known as counties for the purposes of the lieutenancies, are areas of England to which lord-lieutenants are appointed. A lord-lieutenant is the monarch's representative in an area. Shrieval counties have the same boundaries and serve a similar purpose, being the areas to which high sheriffs are appointed. High sheriffs are the monarch's judicial representative in an area.
The preserved counties of Wales are the eight current areas used in Wales for the ceremonial purposes of lieutenancy and shrievalty. They are based on the counties which were used for local government and other purposes between 1974 and 1996. Each comprises one or more of the 22 single-tier principal areas which are used for administrative purposes.
County Durham, officially simply Durham (/ˈdʌrəm/), is a ceremonial county in North East England. The county borders Northumberland and Tyne and Wear to the north, the North Sea to the east, North Yorkshire to the south, and Cumbria to the west. The largest settlement is Darlington, and the county town is the city of Durham.
The Association of British Counties (ABC) is a non-party-political society formed in 1989 by television personality Russell Grant to promote the historic counties of the United Kingdom. It argues that the historic counties are an important part of Britain's cultural heritage and as such should be preserved and promoted. It also proposes that there be a clear official distinction between the historic counties and the administrative units known as counties—first described as a separate entity in the Local Government Act 1888.
The Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that created the current local government structure of 32 unitary authorities covering the whole of Scotland.
The Local Government Act 1972 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales on 1 April 1974. It was one of the most significant Acts of Parliament to be passed by the Heath Government of 1970–74.
The local government areas of Scotland were redefined by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 and redefined again by the Local Government etc (Scotland) Act 1994.
A non-metropolitan county, or colloquially, shire county, is a subdivision of England used for local government.
The Lord Lieutenant of Nairn, is the British monarch's personal representative in an area which has been defined since 1975 as consisting of the local government district of Nairn, in Scotland, and this definition was renewed by the Lord-Lieutenants (Scotland) Order 1996. Previously, the area of the lieutenancy was the county of Nairn, which was abolished as a local government area by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973. The district was created, under the 1973 act, with the boundaries of the county, as a district of the two-tier Highland region and abolished as a local government area under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1994, which turned the Highland region into a unitary council area.
The Local Government (Wales) Act 1994 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which amended the Local Government Act 1972 to create the current local government structure in Wales of 22 unitary authority areas, referred to as principal areas in the Act, and abolished the previous two-tier structure of counties and districts. It came into effect on 1 April 1996.
The counties of the United Kingdom are subnational divisions of the United Kingdom, used for the purposes of administrative, geographical and political demarcation. The older term, shire is historically equivalent to county. By the Middle Ages, county had become established as the unit of local government, at least in England. By the early 17th century, all of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland had been separated into counties. In Scotland shire was the only term used until after the Act of Union 1707.
Metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties are one of the four levels of subdivisions of England used for the purposes of local government outside Greater London and the Isles of Scilly. As originally constituted, the metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties each consisted of multiple districts, had a county council and were also the counties for the purposes of Lieutenancies. Later changes in legislation during the 1980s and 1990s have resulted in counties with no county council and 'unitary authority' counties with no districts. Counties for the purposes of Lieutenancies are now defined separately, based on the metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties.
Borough status is granted by royal charter to local government districts in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The status is purely honorary, and does not give any additional powers to the council or inhabitants of the district. In Scotland, similarly chartered communities were known as royal burghs, although the status is no longer granted.
The Architects Act 1997 is the consolidating Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for the keeping and publishing of the statutory Register of Architects by the Architects Registration Board. It has the long title: An Act to consolidate the enactments relating to architects. It consolidated two Acts of the 1930s as later amended both by primary legislation and by Orders in Council implementing the EC directive on architects providing for the recognition of architects qualified in other EC states, and the changes which had been made by Part III of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996.
The Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980 is an act of Parliament in the United Kingdom. Most of the act's provisions were merely a consolidation of already existing legislation, and as such subject to little controversy, with the notable exception was section 80, which partially decriminalised private homosexual acts between consenting adults in Scotland.
Plymouth City Council is the local authority for Plymouth, a unitary authority with city status in the ceremonial county of Devon, England.
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