UK Offence Report

The Lobsters and Crawfish (Prohibition of Fishing and Landing) (Wales) Order 2002

Welsh Statutory Instrument 2002 No. 676 — creates 1 criminal offence.

1offences created
0recorded in force
0revoked
Made
12 March 2002
In force from
1 April 2002
Extent
Not stated
Subject
Health and safety, environment, waste and fisheries
Made under
Sea Fish (Conservation) Act 1967

Explanatory note

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

This Order prohibits fishing for, and landing of, lobsters and crawfish bearing a V notch or mutilated in such a manner as to obscure a V notch by both relevant British fishing boats and Scottish fishing boats (articles 3 and 4). The Order applies to Wales and to the territorial sea adjacent to Wales. The Order also gives British sea-fishery officers further enforcement powers in relation to relevant British fishing boats and Scottish fishing boats within Wales and the territorial sea adjacent to Wales (article 5). They already have powers under section 15(2) of the Sea Fish (Conservation) Act 1967 (“the 1967 Act”), as amended by the Fisheries Act 1981, to seize any fish in respect of which an offence has been or is being committed under sections 5(1) and (6) of the 1967 Act. By virtue of respectively sections 5(1) and 6(5) of the 1967 Act it is an offence to fish for or land such lobsters or crawfish in contravention of this Order. Section 5(6) of that Act provides that any fish caught in contravention of the Order shall (subject to section 9 of the 1967 Act) be returned to the sea forthwith. Section 5(7) provides that where subsection (6) is not complied with the master, the owner and the charterer (if any) of the fishing boat shall each be guilty of an offence. Penalties are prescribed by section 11 of the 1967 Act, as amended by the Fisheries Act 1981 and the Criminal Justice Act 1991. This Order is made in reliance on Article 46.1 of Council Regulation (EC) No. 850/98 (OJ No. L125, 27.4.98, p.1), for the conservation of fishery resources through technical measures for the protection of juveniles of marine organisms, which authorises Member States to take certain national measures for the conservation and management of stocks.

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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