Ottawa Agreements Act 1932

JurisdictionUK Non-devolved


Ottawa Agreements Act, 1932

(22 & 23 Geo. 5.) 53.

An Act to enable effect to be given to the Agreements made on the twentieth day of August, nineteen hundred and thirty-two, at the Imperial Economic Conference held at Ottawa, and to a certain announcement made at that Conference on behalf of His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, by imposing and providing for the imposition of certain duties of customs and otherwise, to make further provision for Imperial preference, and for purposes consequential on and connected with the matters aforesaid.

[15th November 1932]

Most Gracious Sovereign,

We , Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons in Parliament assembled, with a view to the giving of effect to the agreements made on the twentieth day of August, nineteen hundred and thirty-two, at the Imperial Economic Conference held at Ottawa (being the agreements set out in the First Schedule to this Act), and to the announcement made at that Conference on behalf of His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom (being the announcement set out in Part VIII of the said Schedule), have freely and voluntarily resolved to give and grant unto Your Majesty the duties for which provision is hereinafter contained; and do therefore most humbly beseech Your Majesty that it may be enacted, and be it enacted by the King'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:—

S-1 Charge of customs duties on goods specified inSecond Schedule.

1 Charge of customs duties on goods specified inSecond Schedule.

(1) With a view to the fulfilment of the agreements set out in the First Schedule to this Act (hereafter in this Act referred to as the ‘scheduled agreements’) and the announcement set out in Part VIII of that Schedule, there shall be charged on the importation into the United Kingdom of goods of the classes and descriptions specified in the first column of Part I of the Second Schedule to this Act, the duties of customs respectively specified in the second column of that part of that Schedule, subject to the provisions of Part II of that Schedule.

(2) If at any time the Treasury are satisfied with respect to any duty chargeable under this section that the duty can be repealed, or the rate thereof reduced, as regards goods of any class or description (whether being a class or description specified in Part I of the Second Schedule to this Act or a subsidiary class or description comprised in a class or description so specified) without contravening any of the scheduled agreements for the time being in force, the Treasury shall, unless it appears to them that the repeal or reduction would be inconsistent with the announcement aforesaid, by order direct that, as from such date as may be specified in the order, that duty, as the case may be, shall not be charged on goods of that class or description, or shall be charged thereon at such reduced rate specified in the order as appears to the Treasury to be the lowest rate at which the duty can be charged without contravening any of the scheduled agreements for the time being in force.

(3) If, at any time after an order has been made under the last foregoing subsection, the Treasury are satisfied that the reimposition, or the increase of the rate, of the duty specified in the order is necessary for the fulfilment of any of the scheduled agreements for the time being in force, the Treasury shall by order direct that, as from such date as may be specified in the order, the duty shall again be charged or, as the case may be, shall be charged at such increased rate specified in the order as appears to the Treasury to be the lowest rate at which the duty can be charged without contravening any of the scheduled agreements for the time being in force:

Provided that nothing in this subsection shall authorise any such duty to be charged on goods of any class or description at a rate higher than the rate specified in relation thereto in Part I of the Second Schedule to this Act.

(4) Subject to the provisions of this Act, the duties of customs chargeable on any goods under this section shall be charged in addition to any other duties of customs for the time being chargeable thereon or on any of the components thereof:

Provided that—

(a ) nothing in this subsection shall affect the provisions of paragraph (a ) of subsection (2) of section one of the Import Duties Act, 1932 (which exempts from the general ad valorem duty certain goods for the time being chargeable with a duty of customs by or under any enactment other than that Act); and

(b ) while any goods are chargeable with duty under this section, any order in force under the Import Duties Act, 1932, at the date when those goods become so chargeable shall, if and so far as it imposes an additional duty on those goods, cease to have effect.

(5) Notwithstanding anything in the last foregoing subsection—

(a ) the Import Duties Advisory Committee may recommend, subject to and in accordance with section three of the Import Duties Act, 1932, that an additional duty ought to be charged on goods of any class or description for the time being chargeable with a duty of customs under this section, as if the duty chargeable under this section were the general ad valorem duty, and the Treasury may make an order under that section accordingly; and

(b ) the provisions of the enactments set out in Part III of the Second Schedule to this Act shall, subject to the provisions of that Part of that Schedule, apply for the purposes of this section as they apply for the purposes of the Import Duties Act, 1932:

Provided that this subsection shall not apply to goods which, immediately before they became chargeable with duty under this section, were exempt from the general ad valorem duty by virtue of the provisions of paragraph (a ) of subsection (2) of section one of the said Act.

S-2 General preferences for British Empire.

2 General preferences for British Empire.

(1) Neither the duties chargeable under the foregoing provisions of this Act nor the general ad valorem duty nor, subject as hereinafter provided, any additional duty shall be charged in the case of goods which are shown to the satisfaction of the Commissioners to have been consigned from any part of the British Empire and grown, produced or manufactured in any country the Government of which is a party to one of the scheduled agreements for the time being in force:

Provided that if at any time the Treasury are satisfied with respect to any such country that an additional duty chargeable on goods of any particular class or description can, without contravention of any of the scheduled agreements for the time being in force, be charged on goods of that class or description which are shown as aforesaid to have been consigned from a part of the British Empire and to have been grown, produced or manufactured in that country, the Treasury may by order direct that, as from such date as may be specified in the order, that duty shall be charged on such goods, either at the full rate or at such lower rate as may be so specified.

Any order made under this subsection may be varied or revoked by a subsequent order.

(2) For the purposes of the last foregoing subsection, any territory in respect of which a mandate of the League of Nations is being exercised by, or which is administered under the authority of, the Government of any country shall be treated as if it were a part of that country.

(3) In the case of goods which are shown to the satisfaction of the Commissioners to have been consigned from any part of the British Empire and grown, produced or manufactured in the Irish Free State, the duties chargeable under the foregoing provisions of this Act, or under any order made under section three of the Import Duties Act, 1932, by virtue of the foregoing provisions of this Act, shall not become chargeable until the earliest date on which no order is in force by virtue of which duties are chargeable under the Irish Free State (Special Duties) Act, 1932 , or such later date as may be fixed by resolution of the Commons House of Parliament.

(4) The duties chargeable under the foregoing provisions of this Act shall not be charged in the case of goods which are shown to the satisfaction of the Commissioners to have been consigned from any part of the British Empire and grown, produced or manufactured in any part of the British Empire to which section four of the Import Duties Act, 1932, does not apply.

(5) During the period of three years from the passing of this Act, or such further period as may be prescribed, any copper produced in any part of the British Empire but refined outside the British Empire, being copper to which this subsection applies, shall, subject to proof being given in the prescribed manner that it has been so produced and that it has been consigned from the country in which it was refined, be treated for the purposes of this section as if it had been consigned from a part of the British Empire.

This subsection applies to any kind of copper to which it is declared to apply by regulations made by the Board of Trade, after consultation with the Treasury, for the purposes of this subsection, and the expression ‘prescribed’ in this subsection means prescribed by regulations made as aforesaid, and different regulations may be made with respect to different parts of the British Empire and different kinds of copper.

(6) Goods shown to the satisfaction of the Commissioners to have been consigned from the port of Beira in Portuguese East Africa and shown as aforesaid, by means of a certificate signed by a Customs officer in the service of the Government of Southern or Northern Rhodesia or of Nyasaland, to have been grown, produced or manufactured in Southern or Northern...

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