Pilotage Act 1913
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Citation | 1913 c. 31 |
| Year | 1913 |
Pilotage Act, 1913
(2 & 3 Geo. 5.) CHAPTER 31.
An Act to consolidate and amend the Law relating to Pilotage.
[7th March 1913]
B E 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:
Part I.
Revision of Pilotage Organisation.
1 Improvement of pilotage organisation.
1. The Board of Trade shall take steps to obtain information with respect to pilotage organisation at the various ports in the United Kingdom, and, by the exercise of their powers under this Act to make Pilotage Orders, shall carry into effect any re-organisation or improvement of organisation which the Board may consider necessary or expedient at any port, and shall also at any port deal by Pilotage Order with any Act, order, charter, custom, byelaw, regulation, or provision in force at the port with a view to rendering the law relating to pilotage at the various ports in the United Kingdom accessible and, so far as possible, uniform.
2 Recommendations with respect to pilotage byelaws.
(1) The Board of Trade shall also take steps to obtain information with respect to the byelaws as to pilotage in force at the various ports in the United Kingdom, and, after consulting with the pilotage authority at the port and considering any byelaws proposed by that authority, shall, when necessary or expedient and with a view to securing, so far as practicable, uniformity of administration and to carrying out any changes consequent on the passing of this Act, make recommendations for the substitution of new byelaws for those in force at the port, or in case there are no such byelaws in force, for the making of such byelaws as may be required at the port.
(2) If a pilotage authority fail to submit byelaws in accordance with the recommendations for confirmation by the Board of Trade under this Act, the Board may treat the byelaws recommended by the Board as if they were byelaws submitted to them by the pilotage authority for confirmation, and those byelaws, when confirmed by the Board of Trade in accordance with this Act, shall have the same effect as if they had been so submitted.
3 Commissioners for the purpose of Part I.
(1) The Board of Trade shall appoint such persons as they think fit to act as Commissioners for the purposes of this Act, but the appointment of any person appointed to be a Commissioner under this section shall not have effect beyond the first day of January nineteen hundred and seventeen, or such date, not being more than five years later, as the Board of Trade, with the approval of the Treasury, may determine.
(2) The Board of Trade may appoint and employ such officers or other persons as they think fit to assist any persons acting as Commissioners in the execution of their duties under this Act.
(3) The salaries and remuneration of any persons acting as Commissioners and of any persons so appointed or employed shall be determined by the Board of Trade with the approval of the Treasury, and any such salaries and remuneration, and all expenses incurred by the Board of Trade in the execution of this Act, shall be paid out of moneys provided by Parliament.
4 Schemes for reorganisation of pilotage at ports.
(1) With a view to the preparation of schemes for the re-organisation or improvement of organisation of pilotage, the Board of Trade shall cause local inquiries to be held by any persons acting as Commissioners under this Act at the various ports of the United Kingdom, except in cases where the pilotage authority of the port has submitted, in accordance with this Act, a scheme for the purpose to the Board of Trade, and the Board of Trade are satisfied that the scheme so submitted, with such modifications (if any) as may be made by the Board, is adequate for the purpose, or the pilotage authority have satisfied the Board of Trade that no scheme for the re-organisation or improvement of organisation of pilotage at the port is necessary or expedient. Any such local inquiry may, if the Board think it necessary or desirable, include an inquiry into the byelaws in force at the port where the inquiry is held, and into the operation of those byelaws.
(2) Where any such inquiry is held at any port, the person holding the inquiry shall make a report to the Board of Trade recommending to the Board a scheme for the purpose of the re-organisation or improvement of organisation of pilotage at the port, or if a scheme has been submitted by the pilotage authority, recommending any amendments which it appears expedient to make in the scheme so submitted.
(3) The Board of Trade may, in any case they think fit, group ports for the purpose of any such local inquiry, and in that case the ports so grouped shall be dealt with at the same inquiry.
(4) Any pilotage authority may, within three months after the passing of this Act, give notice to the Board of Trade of their intention to submit a scheme to the Board for the purpose of the re-organisation or improvement of organisation of pilotage at their port, and shall in such a case also give such public notice of their intention as the Board may require, and if such a scheme is so submitted to the Board within nine months after the passing of this Act, the scheme shall be treated as a scheme submitted to the Board in accordance with this Act.
5 Provision as to local inquiries.
(1) Notice of any local inquiry to be held under this Part of this Act shall be given and published in such manner as the Board of Trade think best fitted for giving information of the time and place of the inquiry to those concerned, and all persons interested shall be permitted to attend and make representations.
(2) Any person holding a local inquiry shall have power, by summons signed by him, to require the attendance of all such persons as he thinks fit to call and examine for the purpose of the inquiry, and shall have power to require the production of all books, papers, and documents which he considers important for that purpose.
(3) Any persons attending as witnesses at any such local inquiry shall be allowed such expenses as would be allowed to witnesses attending before a court of record, or in Scotland before the court of session, and in case of dispute as to the amount to be allowed, the dispute shall be referred by any person holding the local inquiry to a master or district registrar of the supreme court, or in Scotland to the auditor of accounts in the court of session, who on request signed by him shall ascertain and certify the proper amount of the expenses.
(4) If any person without reasonable excuse, the proof whereof shall lie on him, fails to comply with any summons or requisition of a person holding a local inquiry under this section, or impedes a person holding a local inquiry in the execution of his duty, he shall be liable on summary conviction in respect of each offence to a fine not exceeding five pounds, and, in addition, to a fine not exceeding one pound for every day during which the offence continues.
6 Consultation with pilots as to byelaws and schemes.
6. The Board of Trade, before making recommendations to a pilotage authority under this Act for the substitution of new byelaws for those in force in any port, and a pilotage authority, before submitting any scheme to the Board for the re-organisation or improvement of organisation of pilotage at their port shall, unless pilots are directly represented on the authority or on a pilotage committee of the authority, take steps to ascertain the opinion of the pilots at the port with respect to the matter in question.
Part II.
General Pilotage Law.
Pilotage Orders.
7 Power of Board of Trade to make Pilotage Orders.
(1) The Board of Trade may, by Order made under this Act (in this Act referred to as a Pilotage Order)—
(a ) make such rearrangement of pilotage districts and pilotage authorities as the Board think necessary or expedient; and
(b ) establish new pilotage districts and new pilotage authorities and abolish existing pilotage districts and existing pilotage authorities in cases where it appears to the Board necessary or expedient; and
(c ) define the limits of pilotage districts, distinguishing as respects any pilotage district in part of which pilotage is compulsory and in part of which pilotage is not compulsory, the part of the district in which pilotage is compulsory; and
(d ) provide for the incorporation of any pilotage authority, and make such alteration in the constitution of any pilotage authority with reference to their powers and duties as pilotage authority, and such provisions as to the appointment of committees (including, if it is thought fit, persons not members of the authority), and as to the relations between the authority and the committee, as the Board think necessary or expedient; and
(e ) empower a pilotage authority to delegate to a committee thereof any of its powers and duties, and provide, if it seems necessary or desirable, that the decisions of the committee on questions so delegated shall not require confirmation by the pilotage authority; and
(f ) make such provision for the direct representation of pilots and shipowners on any pilotage authority or committee of a pilotage authority as the Board think necessary or expedient; and
(g ) in cases where a pilotage authority have powers and duties as to other...
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