Editorial Update/Applying conditionally commenced amendments
New policy for recording commencement of amendments which are conditional upon notification in the Gazettes or upon the ratification or coming into force of an international agreement or treaty, etc.
Please note that from May 2025 onwards, we have decided as far as possible to treat the commencement of amendments which are conditional upon notification in the Gazettes or upon the ratification or coming into force of an international agreement or treaty, etc. using the same procedure that we use for Commencement dependent upon the coming into force of another provision.
Where new legislation is made and we do not have a definite start date we will mark the effects as “prosp” and diarise them in the conditional commencement spreadsheet. The diary will then be checked monthly against information in the Gazettes and on Gov.uk and start dates will be added to TOES when relevant notifications are published and these amendments will subsequently be applied in Editorial Update in the usual way when the start date has been added.
However, where the conditions are not straightforward we may not be able to employ this new procedure due to the difficulties of working out if the conditions have been met and will be forced to resort to our traditional method: that is, using the default start date as the IF Date and the IF Date Qualification = “coming into force in accordance with” and IFDQOther = [provision setting out the conditional commencement].
See more on this in Editorial Principles - Commencement.
Applying conditionally commenced textual amendments where we have used our traditional method of default start date and “coming into force in accordance with” IFDQ
During update, if you come across conditionally commenced textual amendments where we have used our traditional method of default start date and “coming into force in accordance with” IFDQ, please check in the Gazette or on Gov.uk (using the links below) to see if you can identify a real start date.
If you can identify a real start or if is obvious that the amendment is not in force, please talk to your line manager or a reviewer and arrange to early submit the update for review so that they can substitute the real start date into TOES (or mark the amendment as prosp) via corrections before re-allocating the update back to you.
Please not the annotation format for amendments where the real start date has been notified in the Gazette:
Words in reg. 2(1) inserted (16.11.2009 as notified in the London Gazette dated 21.8.2009) by The Medical Act 1983 (Amendment) Order 2002 (S.I. 2002/3135), art. 1(2)(3), Sch. 1 para. 26 (with Sch. 2)
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1989/1230/regulation/2
If it is not clear whether the amendment is in force or prosp, it is acceptable to apply the amendment as a retained text amendment and use “(coming into force in accordance with [provision]” in place of a commencement date.
For non-textual amendments, it is acceptable to apply them and use “(coming into force in accordance with [provision]” in place of a commencement date.