What makes a metal artefact an 'object of outstanding historical, archaeological or cultural importance' in UK?

If you want to know what in Brexitland will make a metal artefact an 'object of outstanding historical, archaeological or cultural importance', you can at last see the draft Order The Treasure (Designation) (Amendment) Order 2023.

"This Order amends the Treasure (Designation) Order 2002 (S.I. 2002/2666) to include an additional class of objects within the definition of treasure in section 1(1) of the Treasure Act 1996 (c. 24), and to exclude two classes of objects from that definition [...] A full impact assessment has not been produced for this instrument as no significant impact on the private, voluntary or public sectors is foreseen".

By whom?

anyway, the new "classes of objects which [sic] are excluded from the definition of treasure" are those that are found in and on land that its "subject to the faculty jurisdiction of the Church of England" (but note, not the Catholics) and "any object found in or under a cathedral church or within its precinct". We all remember the story of the Galloway Hoard found on Church of Scotland land.

The draft Order leads to the following reading of the revised The Treasure (Designation) Order 2002 which in turn modifies the contents (and in particular section 1 of The Treasure Act 1996). Here's a reminder of what that currently looks like (a bit of a mess already):

Note the scratchpad-legislation-enabling Section 2 which is supposed to compensate for a lack of joined-up thinking at the beginning.

Now the 2023 Draft Order perpetuating on the muddle, here's what the relevant section of the 2002 document would look like if it were written following the guidelines given in the 2023 document:

3. The following classes of objects are designated pursuant to section 2(1) of the Act.

(1)

(a) any object (other than a coin), any part of which is base metal, which, when found is one of at least two base metal objects in the same find which are of prehistoric date;
(b) any object, (other than a coin) which is of prehistoric date, and any part of which is gold or silver. (c) any object, any part of which is metal, which satisfies paragraph (2).

(2) An object satisfies this paragraph if—

(a)it provides an exceptional insight into an aspect of national or regional history, archaeology or culture by virtue of one or more of the following—

(i) its rarity as an example of its type found in the United Kingdom,
(ii) the location, region or part of the United Kingdom in which it was found, or
(iii) its connection with a particular person or event; or

(b) although it does not, on its own, provide such an insight, it is, when found, part of the same find as one or more other objects, and provides such an insight when taken together with those objects.”

.Also:

1.—(1) This Order may be cited as the Treasure (Designation) (Amendment) Order 2023 and comes into force 4 months after the day on which it is made.
(2) This Order extends to England and Wales, and Northern Ireland.
(3) The amendments made by this Order do not apply in relation to objects found before this Order comes into force.

But what is "interesting" (if that is the right word) is the bit abut moving the cutoff date from 300 years to 200 years:

EXPLANATORY NOTE (This note is not part of the Order)
This Order ...[...] Article 2(4) designates, for the purposes of section 1(1)(b) of the Treasure Act 1996, an additional class of objects which the Secretary of State considers to be of outstanding historical, archaeological or cultural importance. An object which belongs to that class will fall within the definition of treasure if it is at least 200 years old when found.

eh? It is not IN the Draft Order that modifies the definitin. In fact, without it, the tempral scope of this new type of treasure is not defined at all, it is just "any object" that has a bit of metal in it. Having that in the Code of Practice alone is not formulating the law.