Prices Act 1974
| Year | 1974 |
Prices Act 1974
1974 CHAPTER 24
An Act to authorise the payment of food subsidies; to confer on the Secretary of State power to regulate the price of food and certain other goods and on the Price Commission additional powers for preventing or restricting increases in prices and charges; to make provision for requiring prices to be indicated on or in relation to goods offered or exposed for sale by retail and for requiring information as to the range within which food and certain other goods are commonly being sold by retail within the United Kingdom to be displayed by retailers dealing in those goods; to confer power to abolish the Pay Board; and for purposes connected with those matters.
[9th July 1974]
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 Food subsidies.
(1) Subject to the provisions of this section, the Secretary of State may make payments out of moneys provided by Parliament for the purpose of reducing, or preventing or limiting increases in, food prices in the United Kingdom.
(2) Payments under this section may be made in respect of—
(a ) milk, butter, cheese, flour for the manufacture of bread for sale and household flour, that is to say, flour not for the manufacture of any product for sale; and
(b ) food of any other description specified by an order made by the Secretary of State.
(3) The power to make payments under this section in respect of milk shall, in the case of milk produced in a marketing area as defined in Article 2(1) of the Milk (Guaranteed Prices) Order 1956 , be exercised by making good to the appropriate Ministers the whole or any part of the sums paid by them in the year ending with 31st March 1975 under Article 5 of that Order.
(4) The power to make payments under this section in respect of butter—
(a ) shall be exercised by making good to the Intervention Board for Agricultural Produce the sums paid by them out of moneys provided by Parliament in respect of the year ending with 31st March 1975 in pursuance of the EEC butter subsidy regulations; and
(b ) may, in addition, be exercised in accordance with subsection (5) below.
(5) The power to make payments under this section in respect of food of any description, other than payments required to be made in accordance with subsection (3) or (4)(a ) above, shall be exercisable by making payments, in accordance with a scheme or schemes prepared by the Secretary of State with the approval of the Treasury, to persons carrying on business in the United Kingdom who are concerned (whether as producers, manufacturers, importers, distributors or otherwise) with the supply of food of that description or of products in which such food is an ingredient.
(6) The total payments made by the Secretary of State under this section shall not exceed 700 million.
(7) For the purpose of securing that payments under this section do not confer any benefit in relation to goods exported from the United Kingdom, the Secretary of State may by order make provision for requiring payments to be made to him in respect of goods so exported which consist of or contain food in respect of which payments have been made by him under this section; and any such order—
(a ) may impose obligations on persons who have not themselves received payments under this section; and
(b ) may make different provision in relation to different circumstances and may contain such supplementary provisions as the Secretary of State thinks necessary or expedient.
(8) The power to make an order under this section shall be exercisable by statutory instrument and includes power to vary or revoke a previous order; and—
(a ) a statutory instrument containing an order under subsection (2)(b ) above shall be laid before Parliament after being made, and the order shall cease to have effect at the end of the period of twenty-eight days beginning with the day on which it was made (but without prejudice to anything previously done by virtue of the order or to the making of a new order) unless during that period it is approved by resolution of each House of Parliament;
(b ) a statutory instrument containing an order under subsection (7) above shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament;
In reckoning the period mentioned in paragraph (a ) above no account shall be taken of any time during which Parliament is dissolved or prorogued or during which both Houses are adjourned for more than four days.
(9) The Secretary of State may make arrangements with any other government department (including a Northern Ireland department), with the Intervention Board for Agricultural Produce or with any other authority or body for the discharge by it or by its officers of functions relating to the administration of any scheme under this section or any order under subsection (7) above; and any such authority or body shall (if it would not otherwise do so) have power to enter into and give effect to any such arrangements.
(10) In subsection (4) above ‘the EEC butter subsidy regulations’ means Council Regulation (EEC) No. 1191/73 laying down general rules for the grant of a consumer subsidy for butter, Council Regulation (EEC) No. 711/74 authorising the United Kingdom to grant a national supplementary consumer subsidy for butter and any Regulation amending, replacing or supplementing either of those Regulations.
2 Power of Secretary of State to regulate price of food and certain other goods.
(1) The Secretary of State may by order—
(a ) regulate the prices to be charged for the sale of such subsidised food or fresh food as may be specified in the order and for the sale by retail of such other food or of such other goods to which this section applies as may be so specified;
(b ) require persons selling by retail food or other goods in relation to which an order under paragraph (a ) above is in force to display such information with respect to the effect of the order as may be so specified.
(2) In subsection (1) above—
‘subsidised food’ means food specified in or under subsection (2) of section 1 above, including bread and, if an order under paragraph (b ) of that subsection describes the food to which it applies by reference to its use for the manufacture of any product, that product;
‘fresh food’ means food produced in the course of agriculture, horticulture or fishing which has not been incorporated in any processed product and to which no process has been applied except—
(a ) cleaning, sterilising, breaking down of bulk supplies or packaging; and
(b ) in the case of any carcasses or parts of carcasses of livestock or poultry or of any product of fishing, chilling, freezing, curing, cutting up or boning and, in the case only of bacon and ham, cooking.
(3) The goods, other than food, to which this section applies are articles which appear to the Secretary of State to be necessities normally the subject of recurrent expenditure by, and significantly affecting the cost of living for, persons with small incomes.
(4) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1) above—
(a ) an order under paragraph (a ) of that subsection may make provision whereby the price to be charged by a person is not to exceed his buying price as determined in accordance with the order by more than a margin so determined;
(b ) an order under paragraph (b ) of that subsection may make provision as to the place and manner in which any information is to be displayed;
(c ) an order under either paragraph of that subsection may make different provision in relation to different circumstances and may contain such supplementary provisions as the Secretary of State thinks necessary or expedient.
(5) No order under this section shall apply to any sale after 31st March 1975; but the Secretary of State may by order direct that the foregoing provision shall have effect with the substitution of a subsequent date not being later than 31st March 1976.
(6) Before making an order under subsection (1)(a ) above the Secretary of State shall consult, in such manner as appears to him to be appropriate having regard to the subject-matter and urgency of the order, with such organisations representative of interests substantially affected by the order as appear to him, having regard to those matters, to be appropriate.
(7) In determining whether and in what manner to exercise the powers conferred by subsection (1)(a ) above the Secretary of State shall have regard to the circumstances of the food trade and and the trade in other goods to which this section applies and to the effect of the exercise of those powers on the profitability of those trades.
(8) The power to make an order under this section shall be exercisable by statutory instrument and, in the case of an order under subsection (1) above, includes power to vary or revoke a previous order; and—
(a ) a statutory instrument containing an order under subsection (1) above shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament;
(b ) no order shall be made under subsection (5) above unless a draft of it has been laid before, and approved by resolution of, each House of Parliament.
(9) Nothing in this section applies to the sale of food for consumption on the premises where it is sold.
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