UK Offence Report

The Rural Development Grants (Agriculture) (No. 2) Regulations 1995

UK Statutory Instrument 1995 No. 2202 — creates 2 criminal offences.

2offences created
0recorded in force
0revoked
Made
17 August 1995
In force from
14 September 1995
Extent
Not stated
Subject
Agriculture, plant health, food production and rural affairs
Made under
European Communities Act 1972

Explanatory note

(This note is not part of the Regulations) — published with the instrument by the department that made it. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

These Regulations supplement the Community legislation listed in the Schedule to the Regulations (“the Community legislation”). The Community legislation provides, inter alia, for assistance to be granted from the Guidance Section of the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (“Community assistance”) towards operations which promote rural development by facilitating the development and structural adjustment of certain rural areas, if such operations fall within a sub-programme set out in a Single Programming Document which has been approved by the Commission of the European Communities. These Regulations provide the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (“the Minister”) with the power to approve operations for the receipt of financial assistance, to attach conditions to any such approval (regulation 5) and pay financial assistance (regulation 3). The Regulations also set out the circumstances in which approval of an operation may be revoked and financial assistance paid to a beneficiary, in respect of that operation, may be recovered (regulation 11). The Regulations provide powers of entry and inspection to authorised persons in relation to land on which an approved operation is situated or documents relating to an approved operation are held (regulation 9) (“authorised person” is defined in regulation 2(1)). The Regulations also oblige beneficiaries of financial assistance to keep records relating to the approved operation for a certain period (regulation 10), to supply such information relating to the approved operations as the Minister requires (regulation 8), and to assist an authorised person in the exercise of his powers under regulation 9. The Regulations make it an offence to supply false or misleading information for the purposes of obtaining financial assistance (regulation 12). They also make it an offence intentionally to obstruct an authorised person in the exercise of his powers under regulation 9, and to fail (without reasonable excuse) to keep relevant records for the required period or to provide an authorised person with assistance. These Regulations revoke and replace the Rural Development Grants (Agriculture) Regulations 1995, which contained defects. Copies of the Commission Decisions listed in the Schedule to the Regulations and the Single Programming Documents which have been approved by the those Decisions may be inspected at the offices of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food at Nobel House, 17 Smith Square, London SW1P 3JR (Tel: 0171 238 3000).

Offences created by this instrument

What Parliament said about it

Hansard was searched for this instrument by name and returned nothing. That is the ordinary outcome: an instrument laid under the negative procedure is usually never debated, and becomes law without a word said about it in either House.

How Parliament handled it

Parliament's Statutory Instruments service records procedure from May 2017 onwards, and this instrument predates it. That is a limit of the source, not a statement that nothing happened.

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