Schedule Edinburgh Assay Office

The Edinburgh Assay Office (hereinafter referred to as “the Incorporation”), of which the full name is The Incorporation of Goldsmiths of the City of Edinburgh, has been in existence for more than four hundred years:

The 1973 c. 43.Hallmarking Act 1973 (hereinafter referred to as “the Act of 1973”) made fresh provision as to assay offices, and their powers and duties:

Section 16 of the Act of 1973 gave the Secretary of State power to make orders (inter alia) for constituting and conferring powers on assay offices:

In exercise of that power, the Secretary of State made the S.I. 1979/1587.Edinburgh Assay Office Order 1979 (hereinafter referred to as “the Order of 1979”), altering the constitution of the Incorporation, conferring further powers upon it, repealing certain enactments affecting it, and making other provisions in relation to it:

In further exercise of that power, the Secretary of State made the S.I. 1993/2135.Edinburgh Assay Office (Amendment) Order 1993 (hereinafter referred to as “the Order of 1993”), amending the Order of 1979 and conferring a new power upon the Incorporation:

The assaying of precious metals is believed to have been the earliest and, for a long time, the only form of consumer protection in the United Kingdom:

It would be of public advantage if the Incorporation could extend its activities to the independent and objective testing, examination, investigation and evaluation of materials and articles of any kind, and of firms, corporations, systems, programmes and procedures, and to the purchase and sale of metals and other materials:

For those reasons, and in order that it may respond to changed market conditions resulting from the Single European Market, the Incorporation wishes to have power to carry on, in addition to the business of an assay office, the other activities described in this Order, and to have, in relation to those activities, the ancillary powers so described:

Doubts have arisen as to the extent to which the making of the Order of 1979 and the Order of 1993 was within the powers conferred upon the Secretary of State by section 16 of the Act of 1973, and it is desirable to set those doubts at rest, and to clarify the position for the future, by means of a retrospective amendment of that section in its application to the Incorporation:

The purposes aforesaid cannot be effected without an Order confirmed by Parliament under the provisions of the 1936 c. 52.Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936: