Statistics of Trade Act 1947
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Citation | 1947 c. 39 |
| Year | 1947 |
Statistics of Trade Act , 1947.
(10 & 11 Geo. 6.) CHAPTER 39.
An Act to enable certain government departments to obtain more readily the information necessary for the appreciation of economic trends and for the discharge of their functions; to consolidate and amend the law relating to the census of production; to provide for a census of distribution and other services; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid.
[31st July 1947]
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:—
1 Power of competent authorities to obtain information.
(1) For the purpose of obtaining the information necessary for the appreciation of economic trends and the provision of a statistical service for industry and for the discharge by government departments of their functions, it shall be lawful for a competent authority by notice in writing served on any person carrying on an undertaking to require that person to furnish, in such form and manner and within such time as may be specified in the notice, such periodical or other estimates or returns, about such of the matters set out in the Schedule to this Act as may be so specified.
(2) The notice shall state that it is served under this section of this Act and generally the purpose for which the estimates or returns are required.
2 Census of production, distribution and services.
(1) The Board of Trade shall, for the purpose of providing at intervals general surveys of the state of trade and business, take a census of production in the year nineteen hundred and forty-nine and in every subsequent year, and a census of distribution and other services in any year that may be prescribed by order of the Board, being a calendar year beginning not less than twelve months after the date of the order.
(2) Any person carrying on an undertaking may be required to furnish returns for the purposes of a census under this Act; and the census may either be taken so as to cover all undertakings in the field of production, distribution or other services, as the case may be, or may be confined to such classes or descriptions of those undertakings respectively as may be prescribed; and, without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing provisions of this subsection, the Board of Trade may by order provide for exempting from the obligation to furnish returns for the purposes of a census under this Act, either wholly or to the prescribed extent, and either unconditionally or subject to the prescribed conditions, any persons or any prescribed class or description of persons.
(3) The matters about which a person may be required to furnish returns for the purposes of a census under this Act shall be such of the matters set out in the Schedule to this Act as may be prescribed.
(4) A census under this Act shall require returns to be furnished with respect to the calendar year next preceding the date of the census:
Provided that the Board of Trade may make arrangements for allowing a person, for whom it would be inconvenient to furnish returns with respect to that calendar year, to furnish returns with respect to some other period of twelve months.
3 Returns for the purposes of census.
(1) The Board of Trade shall, subject to the provisions of this Act, prepare and issue such forms and instructions as they deem necessary for the taking of a census under this Act.
(2) A person shall not be required to furnish returns for the purposes of a census under this Act except in pursuance of a notice in writing from the Board of Trade requiring him to do so; and the Board shall issue, with the notice, the forms required to be filled up by that person.
(3) The Board of Trade may delegate any of their functions under the two last foregoing subsections to any other competent authority; and references therein to the Board shall include references to any other authority to whom those functions have been so delegated.
A notice issued by a competent authority in pursuance of powers delegated to that authority shall state that it is so issued.
(4) A person required to furnish returns for the purposes of a census under this Act shall, on or before such day being not less than two months after the service of the said notice as may be specified therein, comply with that requirement in such manner as may be so specified:
Provided that in its application to a person who has been allowed to furnish returns with respect to a period ending not later than the thirty-first day of October in the calendar year preceding the date on which the said notice is served on him, the foregoing provisions of this subsection shall have effect as if for the reference therein to two months there were substituted a reference to one month.
4 Offences relating to returns.
(1) If any person required to furnish estimates or returns under this Act fails to furnish those estimates or returns as required under this Act, he shall, unless he proves that he had reasonable excuse for the failure, be liable on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds, or, in the case of a second or subsequent offence to a fine not exceeding two hundred pounds.
(2) If the failure in respect of which a person is convicted under the last foregoing subsection is continued after the conviction he shall be guilty of a further offence and may on summary conviction thereof be punished accordingly.
(3) If any person in purported compliance with a requirement to furnish such estimates or returns as aforesaid, knowingly or recklessly makes any statement in those estimates or returns which is false in a material particular, he shall be liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months or to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds, or on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds, or, in either case, to both such imprisonment and such fine.
5 Power to prescribe additional subjects of inquiry by Order in Council.
(1) His Majesty may by Order in Council amend the Schedule to this Act by adding to the matters specified therein any other matter.
(2) An Order under this section may amend the said Schedule as aforesaid generally, or so far as it applies, under section one of this Act, to inquiries by competent authorities or, under section two of this Act, to censuses; or so far as it applies to any particular inquiry or census or to any class or description of inquiries or censuses.
(3) A draft of any Order in Council proposed to be made under this section shall be laid before each House of Parliament; and the draft shall not be submitted to His Majesty in Council unless each House of Parliament presents an address to His Majesty praying that the Order be made.
6 Duty to notify undertakings to Board of Trade or other competent authority.
(1) If the Board of Trade publish, by advertisement in the Gazette, and in such newspapers as may appear to the Board to be sufficient for notifying the persons concerned, a list of any classes or descriptions of undertakings in relation to which returns will be required for the purposes of a particular census under this Act, it shall be the duty of every person carrying on an undertaking of any such class or description as aforesaid, who has not received a notice under subsection (2) of section three of this Act, to inform such person as may be specified in the advertisement, within such period, being not less than twenty-one days after the date of publication of the advertisement, as may be specified therein, that he is carrying on such an undertaking as aforesaid, and to give to that person such prescribed particulars of the undertaking as may be so specified.
(2) The Board of Trade may delegate any of their functions under the last foregoing subsection to any other competent authority and references therein to the Board shall include references to any other competent authority to whom those functions have been so delegated.
(3) If any person fails to give any information or particulars as required by this section, he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding five pounds; but it shall be a defence for any person charged with an offence under this subsection to prove that he did not know and had reasonable cause for not knowing that he was required so to give that information or those particulars.
(4) If any person knowingly or recklessly makes a statement in any particulars given as aforesaid which is false in a material particular, he shall be liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months or to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds, or on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds, or, in either case, to both such imprisonment and such a fine.
(5) In this section the expression ‘the Gazette’ means,—
(a ) in relation to an advertisement concerning undertakings in England and Wales only, the London Gazette;
(b ) in relation to an advertisement concerning undertakings in...
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