Orders and Acts
Yes, Chrisbl,
An Act is primary legislation and most Acts create powers for the the minister concerned to create regulations which are dependent for their force upon the Act under which they were made.
However, so far as I'm aware Orders in Council are also primary legislation, enacted not by Parliament, but by the Privy Council. They are not mere statutory instruments.
Usually Orders are the means of producing primary legislantion to deal with some emergency. So why has an order been employed for the ANO, which is not an emergency measure, when an Act could just as easily have been made?
Broomstick.