Price Commission Act 1977
| Year | 1977 |
Price Commission Act1977
1977 CHAPTER 33
An Act to make further provision about the Price Commission and prices and charges, and to amend the Counter-Inflation Act 1973 and the Remuneration, Charges and Grants Act 1975.
[22nd July 1977]
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:—
The Price Commission
1 Alteration of constitution etc of Commission.
(1) The Price Commission (hereafter in this Act referred to as ‘the Commission’) shall continue in being as a body corporate, but the enactments mentioned in subsections (2) and (3) of this section (which among other things relate to the constitution of the Commission) shall have effect as amended by those subsections.
(2) In section 1(2) of the Counter-Inflation Act 1973 (which provides for members of the Commission to be appointed by the Secretary of State and the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food acting jointly) the words ‘and the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (acting jointly)’ shall cease to have effect, and paragraph 20 of Schedule 1 to that Act (which provides for certain references to the Secretary of State to be construed as references to the Secretary of State and the said Minister acting jointly) shall cease to have effect.
(3) The said Schedule 1 (which contains incidental provisions relating to the Commission) shall have effect with the following amendments, namely—
(a ) paragraph 1 (which requires the Commission to make reports on the way in which they have discharged their functions under Part II of the 1973 Act) shall cease to have effect,
(b ) in paragraph 10 (which provides for the appointment of officers and servants by the Commission after consultation with the Secretary of State) for the words ‘after consultation with the Secretary of State’ and the words ‘after such consultation’ there shall be substituted the words ‘with the consent of the Secretary of State’;
(c ) in paragraph 16, for sub-paragraph (4) (under which a person who does not comply with a summons requiring him to attend and give evidence at an inquiry under the 1973 Act is liable to a fine not exceeding 400) there shall be substituted the following sub-paragraph—
(4) If a person refuses or wilfully neglects to attend in obedience to a summons issued under this paragraph or to give evidence as required by such a summons—
(a ) he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding 1,000; and
(b ) without prejudice to his liability under paragraph (a ) above, the High Court may, on the application of the Price Commission, make such order as the Court thinks fit for requiring the refusal or neglect to be remedied;
and any such order may provide that all the costs or expenses of and incidental to the application for the order shall be borne by the person in consequence of whose refusal or neglect the order was made;
(d ) in paragraph 16(5) (which adapts for Scotland and Northern Ireland a reference in paragraph 16 to the High Court), for the words ‘and for the reference’ there shall be substituted the words ‘and for any reference’, after the words ‘Ireland, for the reference’ there shall be inserted the words ‘in sub-paragraph (2) above’ and at the end there shall be inserted the words ‘and for any reference in sub-paragraph (4) above to the High Court there shall be substituted a reference to a judge of the High Court in Northern Ireland’; and
(e ) in paragraph 17 (under which the Commission may arrange for the publication of information and advice with respect to the matters there mentioned) after the word ‘functions,’ there shall be inserted the words ‘or matters relating to prices, charges, profits or costs,’.
(4) The provisions of Schedule 1 to this Act shall have effect for the purpose of enabling the functions of the Commission mentioned in paragraph 1(1) of that Schedule to be performed through groups of members of the Commission.
(5) It is hereby declared that the Commission are not to be regarded as the servant or agent of the Crown or as enjoying any status, privilege or immunity of the Crown or as exempt from any tax, duty, rate, levy or other charge whatsoever, whether general or local, and that their property is not to be regarded as property of or held on behalf of the Crown.
2 Commission's duty to have regard to specified matters.
(1) It shall be the duty of the Commission, in performing any functions mentioned in subsection (3) of this section—
(a ) to have regard to all matters which appear to the Commission in the particular circumstances to be relevant with a view to restraining prices of goods and charges for services so far as that appears to the Commission to be consistent with the making of adequate profits by efficient suppliers of goods and services; and
(b ) to have regard in particular to the matters mentioned in the following subsection so far as the Commission consider them relevant,
and not to have regard to any other matters.
(2) The matters aforesaid are—
(a ) the need to recover costs incurred in efficiently supplying goods and services and in maintaining the value of the relevant businesses;
(b ) the desirability of encouraging reductions in costs by improvements in the use of resources and of securing reductions in prices of goods and charges for services in consequence of such improvements;
(c ) the need to earn, from selling goods and providing services in the United Kingdom, profits which provide a return on the capital employed in producing the profits which is sufficient, taking one year with another—
(i) to defray the cost of the capital (including compensation for the risk involved in producing the profits), and
(ii) to provide money for, and to encourage the promotion of, innovations and technical improvements in and the expansion in the United Kingdom of the enterprises which consist of or include the relevant businesses;
(d ) the need to take account of changes in prices in determining the value of assets;
(e ) the desirability of maintaining the quality of goods and services and satisfying the demands of users of goods and services;
(f ) the need to safeguard the interests of users of goods and services by promoting competition between suppliers or, where competition must be restricted or cannot be promoted (either because certain suppliers control a substantial share of the relevant market or for any other reason), by restricting prices and charges;
(g ) the desirability of establishing and maintaining a balance between the supply of goods and services and the demand for them; and
(h ) the need to avoid detriment, from restraints on prices and charges, to the United Kingdom's balance of payments and the need to increase the share of United Kingdom enterprises in markets in the United Kingdom and elsewhere.
(3) The functions of the Commission referred to in subsection (1) of this section are—
(a ) the function of determining whether to give a notification in pursuance of section 4(1) or 5(1) of this Act;
(b ) the function of determining whether to give a notice in pursuance of section 4(4) or paragraph (i) of section 4(5) or that paragraph as applied by section 5(4) of this Act and of determining the terms of a notice in pursuance of that paragraph or that paragraph as so applied; and
(c ) the function of carrying out, and of preparing a report in consequence of, an investigation in pursuance of section 6 or an examination in pursuance of section 11 of this Act.
3 Quarterly report.
(1) It shall be the duty of the Commission to make to the Secretary of State—
(a ) during the month of November in the year 1977 and the month of February, May, August and November in each subsequent year, a report on the performance of the Commission's functions during the three months ending with the preceding month;
(b ) during the month of August 1977, a report on the performance of the Commission's functions during the months of June and July 1977.
(2) It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State—
(a ) to lay before each House of Parliament a copy of each report made to him in pursuance of the preceding subsection; and
(b ) to publish each such report in such manner as he considers appropriate.
Investigation by Commission of price increases, prices and margins
4 Proposals to investigate price increases.
(1) If the Commission consider that an increase of which notice has been given to the Commission in pursuance of an order under section 5 of the 1973 Act should be the subject of an investigation in pursuance of section 6 of this Act, the Commission may, at any time within the period which in relation to the notice is specified in the order in accordance with section 5(3) of that Act, notify the Secretary of State in writing that in the opinion of the Commission the increase should be the subject of such an investigation.
(2) Where the Commission give a notification to the Secretary of State in pursuance of the preceding subsection in respect of an increase, then—
(a ) it shall be the duty of the Commission to give a copy of the notification immediately to the person who gave the notice of the increase to the Commission (hereafter in this Act referred to, in relation to the increase, as ‘the relevant person’); and
(b ) the order aforesaid shall, subject to the...
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