UK Offence Report

Contravention of The Plastic Materials and Articles in Contact with Food Amendment (Scotland) Regulations 2005

the instrument as a whole of The Plastic Materials and Articles in Contact with Food Amendment (Scotland) Regulations 2005 (revoked)

This offence was read from the text as made, and no revised version was available, so a later revocation could not be ruled out. Check the current text at legislation.gov.uk.

What the provision says

Contravening this instrument is an offence under sections 10(2), 33 and 35 of the Food Safety Act 1990. The instrument itself contains no offence-creating words.

Text as made, from legislation.gov.uk. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.

Who it binds, and what has to be proved

Binds
a person
Conduct
breaching the provision
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
Not determined

The prosecution must prove that the conduct happened. This is a strict liability offence as drafted: the provision uses no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence, so there is no need to show that a person meant to do it, knew about it, or was careless.

Intention, knowledge and carelessness are irrelevant to guilt. They may still matter a great deal to sentence.

Classifier’s reasoning: contravention offences of this kind are strict as to the breach; the fault position is governed by the parent Act and was not read from it.

What would breach the instrument as a whole?

These are illustrations, not law. They are generated from the provision’s own words to show the shape of the offence. Whether any particular conduct is caught depends on the full text, on any amendment since, and on the facts.

  1. Doing what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Plastic Materials and Articles in Contact with Food Amendment (Scotland) Regulations 2005.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Set by another provision — the instrument states the penalty by reference to an Act or to another regulation
Maximum fine
Not determined
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

The instrument does not state a penalty itself. It sets one by reference to sections 10(2), 33 and 35 of the Food Safety Act 1990.

the penalty is in the parent Act, not in this instrument.

No penalty was determined from this instrument. It may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence. Absence of a figure here is not evidence that the offence carries no penalty.

Sentencing

Offences of this kind are usually sentenced under the guidelines below. This is a mapping by subject, not a finding about this provision, and the links go to a search of the Sentencing Council’s own site.

Prosecution figures

No published per-offence figure was found for this provision, and it could not be matched to a Ministry of Justice offence code. Offences created by statutory instrument very largely do not have one. Absence of a figure is not evidence that the offence is unused.

Status and lifecycle

Current status
Status not determined
Made
1 March 2005
In force from
24 March 2005
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: read from the text as made; no revised version available, so later revocation could not be ruled out.

What the instrument is for

(This note is not part of the Regulations) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations, which extend to Scotland only, further amend the Plastic Materials and Articles in Contact with Food Regulations 1998 (S.I. 1998/1376), (“the 1998 Regulations”), which extend to the whole of Great Britain. These Regulations implement, in Scotland, Commission Directive 2004/19/EC (O.J. No. L 71, 10.3.04, p.8) amending Commission Directive 2002/72/EC relating to plastic materials and articles intended to come into contact with foodstuffs (O.J. No. L 220, 15.8.02, p.18), (“the Directive”). The Regulations amend the 1998 Regulations by– a substituting the definition of “additive” used in the Directive, for consistency (regulation 3(a)); b removing references to lists of substances whose authorisations are now spent (regulation 4(a)); c extending to articles the provisions of regulation 4(5) of the 1998 Regulations that formerly only applied to materials (regulation 4(b)); d adding a restriction on the use of additives in the manufacture of plastic materials and articles which relates to substances also used as food additives or flavourings (regulation 5(a)); e extending to articles the provisions of regulation 5(4) of the 1998 Regulations that formerly only applied to materials (regulation 5(b)); f making provision for the procedure to be followed and the time limits to be observed by any person wishing to have an additive included in the Community list of authorised additives (regulation 6); g imposing additional labelling requirements for plastic materials and articles at the pre-retail stage so as to make additional information available to users (regulation 7); h making a consequential amendment to regulation 10 (offences) brought about by the amendment to the labelling requirements (regulation 8(a)); i providing a defence to breach the 1998 Regulations as last amended by these Regulations in respect of plastic materials or articles manufactured or imported into the European Community before 1st March 2006 (regulation 8(b)). They also amend the Schedules to the 1998 Regulations by– a inserting new entries, and amending or deleting some existing ones, in the list of monomers authorised without time limit in Section A of Part I of Schedule 1 (regulation 9(a) and Schedules 1 & 2); b removing the list of entries for monomers authorised with a time limit that has now expired (regulation 9(b)); c adding further supplementary specifications in Part II of Schedule 1 (regulation 10); d inserting new entries and amending or deleting some existing entries in the list of additives used in the manufacture of plastic materials and articles in Part I of Schedule 2 (regulation 11 and Schedules 3 & 4); e inserting new entries and deleting some existing entries in the list of additives used in the manufacture of plastic materials and articles set out I Part II of Schedule 2 (regulation 12 and Schedule 5); f adding further supplementary specifications to Part III of Schedule 2, and extending the time limit applicable to substances listed in Part II of that Schedule (regulation 13); g amending the restrictions and specifications in the entry in Schedule 2A relating to products obtained by bacterial fermentation (regulation 14); h inserting new entries and amending or deleting some existing ones in the specifications set out in Schedule 2B (regulation 15 and Schedule 6);adding a provision to the basic rules for overall and specific migration testing using food simulants set out in Part I of Schedule 4, to allow for migration testing to be omitted in the specific circumstances provided for in the Directive (regulation 16). A Regulatory Impact Assessment, which includes a compliance cost assessment of the effect which these Regulations are likely to have on business costs, has been prepared and has been placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre. Copies may be obtained from the Food Standards Agency, 6th Floor, St Magnus House, 25 Guild Street, Aberdeen AB11 6NJ.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

How this was identified as an offence

Everything above rests on the judgement that this provision creates a criminal offence, rather than mentioning one. That judgement is made by rule, from the words of the provision, and this is the rule that made it — with a confidence of 0.72.

Basis
the penalty comes from the enabling Act rather than from this instrument
Confidence
0.72 of 1.00

A provision that states a penalty for an offence created elsewhere can read very like one that creates an offence, and the rules can mistake the one for the other. If the text quoted above sets a penalty for something made an offence by another provision, treat the classification on this page with that in mind, and read the instrument.

Check the source