UK Offence Report

The Shrimp Fishing Nets (Wales) Order 2003

Welsh Statutory Instrument 2003 No. 3035 — creates 1 criminal offence.

1offences created
0recorded in force
1revoked
Made
26 November 2003
In force from
30 November 2003
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 regulates the carriage and use of any fishing nets with mesh size between 16 and 31 millimetres, measured in accordance with Commission Regulation (EEC) No. 2108/1984 of 23rd July 1984. It sets out the national provisions called for by Article 25 of Council Regulation (EC) No. 850/98 of 30th March 1998, by specifying separator trawls and sorting grids as the types of device required to be used. The Order applies to British fishing boats in Welsh waters and prohibits them from carrying or using such nets other than in certain specified circumstances (article 3). The taking of measures for the conservation and management of stocks under Article 46 of Council Regulation 850/98 is subject to a condition that the measures apply solely to the fishermen of the Member State concerned. The specified exceptions are where defined attachments are fitted to the net (article 3(1)(a)-(b)), where no sea fish have been caught (article 3(1)(c)) or where less than 60% by live weight of the total catch comprises common shrimps and/or Aesop shrimps, and any sea fish retained on board are retained in accordance with Article 25 of Council Regulation (EC) No. 850/98 (article 3(1)(d)). If any boat breaches this prohibition, the master, owner and charterer is guilty of an offence and is liable to a fine not exceeding £5,000 on summary conviction and on conviction on indictment to a fine (sections 3(5) and 11(1)(b) of the Sea Fish (Conservation) Act 1967). The court may also impose an additional fine not exceeding the value of the fish caught with the net or order the net’s forfeiture (section 11(2)-(3) of the 1967 Act). Additionally the Order confers powers of enforcement on British sea-fishery officers for the purposes of enforcing this Order or any equivalent Order implementing similar prohibitions in relation to any categories of fishing boat. A Regulatory Appraisal has been prepared and deposited in the Library of the National Assembly. A copy may be obtained from the Agriculture and Fisheries Policy Division, Welsh Assembly Government, Cathays Park, Cardiff, CF10 3NQ.

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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