Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976
| Year | 1976 |
Agriculture (MiscellaneousProvisions) Act 1976
1976 CHAPTER 55
An Act to dissolve the Sugar Board; to provide for increasing the amount which may be advanced under section 2 of the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation Act 1956; to amend the provisions of Part I of the Agriculture Act 1967 relating to the Meat and Livestock Commission and their committees; to provide for the making of grants in connection with proficiency tests in crafts related to agriculture; to authorise measures to restrict the growing of male hop plants; to make further provision for obtaining agricultural statistics; to provide for the adaptation of certain enactments to metric units; to provide for regulating the exportation of animals in the interests of their welfare; to make further provision for preventing the transmission of disease from wild life to animals and poultry; to amend the law relating to agricultural holdings; to amend section 29(4) of the Agriculture Act 1970; and for purposes connected with those matters.
[15th November 1976]
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:—
Part I
Miscellaneous Provisions
1 Dissolution of Sugar Board.
(1) On such day as the Minister may by order appoint (in this section referred to as ‘the appointed day’) the property, rights and liabilities which immediately before that day were property rights and liabilities of the Sugar Board established by section 1 of the Sugar Act 1956 (in this section referred to as ‘the Board’) shall vest in the Minister by virtue of this section and without further assurance.
(2) The Minister shall not dispose of any shares in the British Sugar Corporation transferred to him by the preceding subsection except with the consent of the Treasury.
(3) If the appointed day is other than a day immediately following the end of a financial year of the Board, the Board's financial year then current shall be deemed to have ended with the day before the appointed day.
(4) As soon as the Minister is satisfied that the requirements of section 6 of the Sugar Act 1956 (annual report and accounts) have been complied with on the part of the Board in respect of financial years down to and including the one ending immediately before the appointed day, he shall by order dissolve the Board; and thereupon any further liabilities incurred by the Board on or after the appointed day in complying with the said section 6 or otherwise shall become liabilities of the Minister.
(5) The Minister shall lay a copy of any report made to him under the said section 6 before each House of Parliament.
(6) Any power to make an order conferred on the Minister by this section shall be exercisable by statutory instrument.
(7) Section 12 of the Finance Act 1895 (which requires Acts to be stamped as conveyances on sale in certain cases) shall not apply to any transfer of property effected by this section.
(8) Any gain accruing to the Board in consequence of subsection (1) above shall not be a chargeable gain for the purposes of corporation tax on chargeable gains.
2 Increase in advances to Agricultural Mortgage Corporation Ltd.
(1) The amount of the advances which the Minister may make to the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation Limited under section 2 of the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation Act 1956 of that section, as amended by section 13 of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1972 , for the words ‘seventeen million pounds’ there shall be substituted the words ‘30 million’.
(2) The Minister may from time to time by order made with the approval of the Treasury increase or further increase the amount specified in the said subsection (1), as amended by the preceding subsection, to any amount not exceeding 40 million.
(3) The power to make orders under subsection (2) above includes power to revoke a previous order and shall be exercisable by statutory instrument, but no order shall be made under that subsection unless a draft thereof has been approved by a resolution of the House of Commons.
3 Duties of Meat and Livestock Commission as regards consultation.
(1) The provisions of Part I of the Agriculture Act 1967 relating to the Meat and Livestock Commission and their committees shall be amended in accordance with the following provisions of this section (which replace the provisions about the Production Committee and the Distribution Committee and the Commission's duty to consult them with provisions requiring the Commission to consult representative organisations, but preserve the Commission's duty to consult the Consumers Committee); and accordingly the Production Committee and the Distribution Committee of the Commission are hereby abolished.
(2) After section 1 of the Agriculture Act 1967 there shall be inserted as section 1A—
1A ‘Commission's duty to consult representative organisations.
(1) If it appears to the Commission that any matter arising or likely to arise out of the exercise of the Commission's functions has or is likely to have a substantial effect on the interests of one or more classes of persons mentioned in Part IIA of Schedule 1 to this Act, the Commission shall consult the relevant organisation or each of the relevant organisations about that matter; and where a number of organisations fall to be consulted under this subsection about any such matter, the Commission may consult them together, or separately, or some together and others separately, as the Commission think fit.
(2) For the purposes of this section an organisation is a relevant organisation in relation to a class of persons mentioned in the said Part IIA if it is for the time being designated by the Ministers as a relevant organisation in relation to that class; and the Ministers shall designate, in relation to any such class of persons, all such organisations as appear to them appropriate as representing the interests of that class, taking account of interests in Scotland and Wales as well as in England.
(3) The Commission may pay to representatives of organisations consulted by them in pursuance of this section such travelling or other allowances as the Ministers may, with the approval of the Minister for the Civil Service, determine.’.
(3) In Schedule 1 to the Agriculture Act 1967 , after Part II there shall be inserted as Part IIA—
‘Part IIA
of Section 1AClasses of Persons for Purposes
Cattle, pig and sheep producers.
Persons employed in livestock production.
Livestock traders.
Livestock auctioneers.
Local authorities operating slaughterhouses and livestock and meat markets.
Persons engaged in animal by-products trades.
Wholesalers of meat and importers of meat (excluding bacon).
Producers of bacon and other edible livestock products except meat.
Retailers of meat and other edible livestock products.
Persons employed in the marketing and distribution of livestock or the production, processing, manufacture, marketing and distribution of livestock products.’.
(4) There shall be made in Part I of the Agriculture Act 1967 the further amendments specified in Schedule 1 to this Act, being amendments arising out of the abolition of the Production Committee and the Distribution Committee of the Commission; but those amendments shall not affect the validity of any appointment as chairman or member of the Consumers Committee, and any such appointment shall have effect as if made under section 2(1) of that Act, together with paragraph 1 of Part III of Schedule 1 thereto, as substituted by the said Schedule 1.
4 Grants in connection with proficiency tests in crafts related to agriculture.
(1) This section applies to any body of persons the activities of which include the taking of measures for some or all of the following purposes, namely—
(a ) devising, formulating and promoting proficiency tests in crafts related to agriculture in England and Wales, formulating standards for those tests, and revising those tests and standards from time to time;
(b ) co-ordinating the activities of bodies carrying out such proficiency tests in England or Wales, and monitoring the methods and standards of such bodies in carrying out those tests; and
(c ) making and maintaining arrangements for obtaining and evaluating data about the use and results of such proficiency tests in England and Wales (including their use by the Agricultural Wages Board for England and Wales in connection with the fixing of minimum rates of wages for workers employed in agriculture).
(2) The Minister may with the approval of the Treasury make payments by way of grant to any body to which this section applies for use in or towards meeting expenditure incurred or to be incurred by the body for or in connection with any purpose mentioned in subsection (1) above.
(3) A payment under this section may be made on such conditions as the Minister thinks fit to impose, including conditions for restricting the purposes for which it can be used.
(4) If, in the case of any payment made under this section, it appears to the Minister—
(a ) that the payment or any part of it has not been used for the purpose for which it was made; or
(b ) that, as regards the payment or any part of it, any condition on...
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