Civic Guide

Devolved, Reserved and Excepted: What Stormont Can and Can't Decide

Not every decision that affects Northern Ireland is made at Stormont. The Northern Ireland Act 1998 divides government business into three categories — transferred, reserved and excepted — that determine whether the Assembly, or the UK Parliament at Westminster, is in charge. Knowing which is which explains a lot: why Stormont debates hospital waiting lists but not immigration, and why some issues can only be raised with your MP rather than your MLA.

Transferred (devolved): Stormont decides

Transferred matters are the default: anything not listed as reserved or excepted is devolved to the Assembly. They cover most day-to-day public services, and map closely onto the nine Executive departments:

Health and social care (DoH)
Education (DE)
Agriculture, environment and rural affairs (DAERA)
Economy, skills and further/higher education (DfE)
Roads, water, planning and public transport (DfI)
Housing, benefits administration, sport and culture (DfC)
Justice, policing and prisons (DoJ — devolved in 2010)
Public finances and the civil service (DoF)

On these matters the Assembly can pass its own laws — see how a bill becomes law — and Northern Ireland’s rules can and do differ from those in England, Scotland and Wales.

Excepted: Westminster only

Excepted matters (Schedule 2 of the 1998 Act) are matters of national sovereignty that are intended to stay at Westminster permanently: the Crown and the constitution, international relations, defence, nationality and immigration, the currency, national taxation (such as income tax and VAT), national security, and the framework of elections. The Assembly cannot legislate on these except in very limited, consequential ways.

Reserved: Westminster for now, but transferable

Reserved matters (Schedule 3) sit in between: they are held at Westminster but can be devolved later if the Assembly requests it with cross-community support and Westminster agrees. Examples include firearms and explosives, some aspects of broadcasting, consumer safety, and civil aviation. The category can shrink over time — the landmark example is policing and justice, which moved from reserved to transferred in 2010, creating the Department of Justice.

The complications: Westminster's override and the Windsor Framework

Two things blur the tidy three-way split:

Westminster remains sovereign. The UK Parliament can still legislate on devolved matters for Northern Ireland. By convention (the Sewel convention) it does not normally do so without the Assembly’s consent, expressed through a legislative consent motion — but the convention is political, not legally binding, and has been set aside at times, including during periods when the Assembly was not sitting.

The Windsor Framework. Since the UK left the EU, certain EU laws — mainly on goods, customs and related areas — continue to apply in Northern Ireland under the Windsor Framework. The Assembly does not write these rules, but it has formal scrutiny and consent mechanisms, including the Windsor Framework Democratic Scrutiny Committee, which examines new and amended EU acts that would apply in Northern Ireland, and the periodic democratic consent vote on continuing the arrangements.

Who to contact about what

A practical rule of thumb: for health, education, roads, housing, justice, farming or the environment, contact one of your five MLAs. For immigration, defence, pensions policy, national taxation or foreign affairs, contact your MP. For bins, leisure centres, local planning applications and street cleaning, contact your local councillor.