Civil Aviation Act 1978
Civil Aviation Act 1978
1978 CHAPTER 8
An Act to establish a fund from which payments may be made in respect of expenses incurred for the purpose of protecting aircraft, aerodromes or air navigation installations against acts of violence or in connection with the policing of airports; to amend the law relating to the Civil Aviation Authority and the British Airways Board; to amend the law relating to noise, vibration and atmospheric pollution caused by aircraft; and otherwise to amend the law relating to aerodromes, aircraft and civil aviation; and for connected purposes.
[23rd March 1978]
Be it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—
Aviation Security Fund
1 Establishment and purpose of Aviation Security Fund.
(1) There shall be established under the control and management of the Secretary of State a fund to be called the Aviation Security Fund (in the following provisions of this Act referred to as the Fund) out of which payments shall be made in accordance with subsection (2) below.
(2) Any payment falling to be made by the Secretary of State under either of the following provisions, that is to say—
(a ) section 23 of the Protection of Aircraft Act 1973 (reimbursement of expenses incurred by aircraft operators, aerodrome managers and others for the purpose of protecting aircraft, aerodromes and air navigation installations against acts of violence);
(b ) section 7 of the Policing of Airports Act 1974 (reimbursement of expenses incurred by aerodrome authorities in or in connection with the policing of aerodromes),
shall, unless the Secretary of State certifies that the payment is of an exceptional nature, be defrayed out of the Fund instead of out of moneys provided by Parliament and any such payment defrayed out of the Fund may be made without the consent of the Treasury.
(3) The Secretary of State shall prepare accounts of the Fund in such form as the Treasury may direct and shall send them to the Comptroller and Auditor General not later than the end of the month of November following the end of the financial year to which the accounts relate; and the Comptroller and Auditor General shall examine and certify every such account and shall lay copies thereof, together with his report thereon, before Parliament.
(4) Any money in the Fund which appears to the Secretary of State not to be immediately required for the purposes of the Fund may be deposited by him with the Bank of England or with any company that is a banking or discount company for the purposes of the Protection of Depositors Act 1963 ; and any interest received by the Secretary of State in respect of money so deposited shall be paid by him into the Fund.
(5) There shall be paid out of the Fund into the Consolidated Fund sums equal to the amount of any expenses incurred by the Secretary of State in the management and control of the Aviation Security Fund.
2 Contributions to the Fund.
(1) The Secretary of State may make regulations containing such provisions as he considers appropriate for requiring aerodrome authorities to pay him, in respect of all aerodromes or of aerodromes of a prescribed class, contributions to the Fund calculated in accordance with the following provisions of this section.
(2) Those contributions shall be payable in respect of prescribed periods and the contribution payable for any aerodrome in respect of each such period shall be one of the following amounts or, if it is so prescribed, the aggregate of those amounts, that is to say—
(a ) an amount ascertained by multiplying a prescribed sum by the number of passengers, or passengers of a prescribed description, who during that period arrived by air at or departed by air from that aerodrome or the number of such passengers in excess of a prescribed limit;
(b ) an amount ascertained by multiplying a prescribed sum by the total prescribed units of weight of each aircraft or aircraft of a prescribed description, which during that period arrived at or departed from that aerodrome.
(3) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1) above, regulations under this section may—
(a ) prescribe the time when any contribution is to be paid;
(b ) charge interest at a rate prescribed with the consent of the Treasury on so much of any contribution as is overdue;
(c ) require aerodrome authorities, in relation to the aerodromes under their management, to furnish the Secretary of State with such information, to keep such records and to make such returns to him about the matters mentioned in subsection (2) above as may be prescribed;
(d ) provide that contravention of any prescribed provision of the regulations (other than a failure to pay a contribution or interest on any overdue contribution) shall be an offence, either triable on indictment or summarily or triable only summarily, and punishable in each case with a fine, not exceeding in the case of a summary conviction, 1,000.
(4) The Secretary of State shall pay into the Fund all money received by him by virtue of regulations made under this section.
(5) Where an offence under regulations made under this section which has been committed by a body corporate is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of, or to be attributable to any neglect on the part of, any director, manager, secretary or other similar officer of the body corporate or any person who was purporting to act in any such capacity, he as well as the body corporate shall be guilty of that offence and be liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly.
(6) Where the affairs of a body corporate are managed by its members, subsection (5) above shall apply in relation to the acts and defaults of a member in connection with his functions of management as if he were a director of the body corporate.
(7) Subsection (3)(d ) above shall have effect—
(a ) in its application to offences triable either way in England and Wales, as if for ‘1,000’ there were substituted ‘the prescribed sum within the meaning of section 28 of the Criminal Law Act 1977’ (that is to say, 1,000 or another sum fixed by order under section 61 of that Act to take account of changes in the value of money);
(b ) in its application to offences triable on indictment or summarily in Scotland, as if for ‘1,000’ there were substituted ‘the prescribed sum within the meaning of section 289B of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1975’ (that is to say, 1,000 or another sum fixed by an order under section 289D of that Act for that purpose).
(8) In this section ‘prescribed’, except where the context otherwise requires, means prescribed by regulations made under this section, and—
(a ) regulations so made may make different provision for different cases; and
(b ) the regulations first so made may, if not made before 1st April 1978, be retrospective to that date so that the first period prescribed for the purposes of subsection (2) above shall begin on or after that date.
(9) Regulations shall not be made under this section unless a draft of the regulations has been laid before Parliament and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.
(10) In this section—
‘aerodrome’ means an aerodrome within the meaning of the Protection of Aircraft Act 1973 ; and
‘aerodrome authority’ means, in relation to any aerodrome, the person (whether the British Airports Authority, the Civil Aviation Authority, a local authority or any other person) by whom the aerodrome is managed.
3 Financing of Fund: borrowing.
(1) The Secretary of State may borrow temporarily by overdraft or otherwise such sums in sterling as he may require for the purposes of the Fund.
(2) The Secretary of State shall pay into the Fund any sum borrowed under subsection (1) above; and the Secretary of State shall make any repayment in respect of the principal of any such sum, and any payment in respect of interest thereon, out of the Fund.
(3) The aggregate amount outstanding by way of principal in respect of sums borrowed by the Secretary of State under subsection (1) above shall not at any time exceed 5 million, or such larger sum, not exceeding 10 million, as the Secretary of State may by order made with the consent of the Treasury determine.
(4) The Treasury may guarantee in such manner and on such conditions as they think fit the repayment of, and the payment of any interest on, any sums borrowed by the Secretary of State under subsection (1) above.
(5) Immediately after any guarantee is given under subsection (4) above, the Treasury shall lay a statement of the guarantee before each House of Parliament.
(6) Any sums required by the Treasury for fulfilling any guarantee given under subsection (4) above shall be charged on and paid out of the Consolidated Fund.
(7) Where any sum is issued out of the Consolidated Fund under subsection (6) above, the Treasury shall, as soon as possible after the end of each financial year (beginning with that in which the sum is issued and ending with that in which all liability in respect of the principal of the sum and in respect of interest thereon is finally discharged) lay before each House of Parliament an account of that sum and of any payments made, during the financial year to which the account relates, by way of repayment of that sum or by way of interest thereon.
(8) Any sum issued for fulfilling a guarantee given under subsection (4) above shall be repaid by the Secretary of State out of the Aviation Security...
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