Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1963
| Year | 1963 |
Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1963
1963 CHAPTER 11
An Act to make further provision as to grants and contributions for agricultural and certain horticultural purposes and otherwise to amend the law relating to agriculture, agricultural produce and agricultural land; to provide for the purchase by the Sugar Board of sugar from the Republic of Ireland; to make new provision as to the charging of certain fees; and for purposes connected with those matters.
[15th May 1963]
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:—
1 Increase of amounts available for improvement grants under Hill Farming Act 1946.
1. In section 2 (4) of the Hill Farming Act 1946 (which, as amended by the Livestock Rearing Act 1951 and the Hill Farming Act 1956, limits the aggregate of the amounts of improvement grants that may be paid under the said Act of 1946 to a maximum of twenty-five million pounds, but provides for increasing that maximum by two million pounds)—
2 Extension of period for payments of subsidies in respect of hill sheep and cattle.
2. In section 13 of the Hill Farming Act 1946 which (as amended by the Livestock Rearing Act 1951 and the Hill Farming Act 1956) provides—
for the words ‘the sixteen next succeeding years’, in both places where they occur, there shall be substituted the words ‘the twenty next succeeding years’ and for the words from ‘in the nine next succeeding years’ to the end of the section there shall be substituted the words ‘in the nine next succeeding years as may be so specified and such day of December in the last of those years and in the ten next succeeding years as may be so specified’.
3 Increase of amounts available for grants under Part II of Agriculture Act 1957.
3. In section 18 of the Agriculture Act 1957 (which limits the aggregate amount of the grants that may be made under Part II of that Act to fifty million pounds or such greater amount, not exceeding fifty-five million pounds, as may be determined by an order under that section) for the words from ‘fifty’ to the end of the section there shall be substituted the words ‘ninety million pounds’.
4 Extension of Agriculture \(Fertilisers) Act 1952.
4. A scheme under the Agriculture (Fertilisers) Act 1952 (which provides for the payment of contributions in respect of fertilisers) may be so made as to extend—
and the references in that Act to occupiers of agricultural land and to the use of fertilisers for adding to such land to improve the fertility of the soil shall be construed accordingly.
5 Registration of suppliers for purposes of Agriculture \(Fertilisers) Act 1952 and penalty for false statements, etc.
(1) A scheme under the Agriculture (Fertilisers) Act 1952 may require, as a condition of the payment of contributions under that Act in respect of fertilisers acquired by occupiers of agricultural land in Great Britain or growers of mushrooms in Great Britain or acquired by any association for distribution to its members in Great Britain, that, subject to any exceptions allowed by the scheme, the fertilisers are acquired from a person registered by the Minister under this section.
(2) Subject to the following provisions of this section, where any person carrying on or proposing to carry on a business of supplying fertilisers applies to the Minister for registration under this section, the Minister shall register him if his application—
(a ) is in such form and manner as the Minister may direct, and
(b ) is accompanied by an undertaking to give such information as may be required to verify applications for contributions in respect of fertilisers supplied by him and to produce to any person duly authorised by the Minister books and records required for that purpose and to permit such a person to take copies of or extracts from them.
(3) The Minister may refuse or cancel the registration of a person under this section if within the twelve months immediately preceding his application for registration or, as the case may be, the notification under subsection (4) of this section of the proposed cancellation, he or any person employed by him or any person carrying on business in partnership with him has been convicted of an offence under this section or of any offence involving dishonesty in connection with a scheme under the Agriculture (Fertilisers) Act 1952; and may—
(a ) refuse to register any person on the ground that within the twelve months immediately preceding his application for registration his registration or that of any person with whom he carries on business in partnership has been cancelled under the preceding provisions of this subsection; and
(b ) cancel the registration of any person on the ground that since his registration he or any person employed by him or carrying on business in partnership with him has failed to comply with such an undertaking as is mentioned in subsection (2) of this section;
and where the registration of any person has been cancelled by reason of his or any other person's failure to give any information or to produce, or to permit the taking of copies or extracts from, any books or records, the Minister may refuse to register him unless the information is given, the books or records are produced, or the taking of copies or extracts is permitted, as the case may be.
(4) Before refusing to register any person or cancelling the registration of any person under this section the Minister shall give him notice in writing stating the grounds on which he proposes to do so, and shall give him an opportunity of being heard by a person appointed by the Minister for that purpose and shall consider the report of that person.
(5) Subsections (2) to (4) of this section shall have effect in relation to any application for registration under this section made before the commencement of this Act as if this Act had then been in force; and any registration before the commencement of this Act in pursuance of such an application shall be deemed to be registration under this section.
(6) If any person—
(a ) knowingly or recklessly makes any false statement for the purpose of obtaining for himself or any other person any sum payable by way of contribution under the Agriculture (Fertilisers) Act 1952; or
(b ) wilfully makes a false entry in any document which is required to be produced for the purposes of that Act or of this section or, with intent to deceive, makes use of any such entry which he knows to be false;
he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months or both, or on conviction on indictment to a fine or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or both.
(7) Where an offence 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 deemed to be guilty of that offence and shall be liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly.
(8) For the purposes of this section a director or other officer of a body corporate shall be deemed to be a person employed by that body.
(9) In this section ‘the Minister’, in relation to any part of Great Britain, means either that one of the Ministers who is concerned with agriculture in that part or the Ministers acting jointly.
6 Grants towards construction of certain buildings used by farmers' machinery syndicates.
(1) The appropriate Minister may make grants towards the cost of constructing, enlarging or adapting buildings for occupation and use by farmers' machinery syndicates for the following purposes or any of them, or mainly for such purposes, that is to say—
(a ) the drying, cleaning or storage of grain produced by their members; and
(b ) the housing of agricultural machinery belonging to the syndicates;
and of providing such buildings with such services, means of access and other works as are reasonably required to enable them to be so...
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