UK Offence Report

Offences and penalties

regulation 17(3) of The Arable Area Payments Regulations 1995

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

3 If any person for the purpose of obtaining the whole or any part of

a compensatory payment or in purported compliance with any requirement imposed under regulation 15(4) knowingly or recklessly makes

a statement which is false or misleading in

a material respect, he shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on summary conviction to

a fine not exceeding level

5 on the standard scale.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
making a false or misleading statement
Fault element
Requires proof of a state of mind
Burden of proof
No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

The prosecution must prove both that the conduct happened and that it was done with the state of mind the provision names (for the purpose of obtaining, knowingly, knowingly or recklessly, recklessly).

The provision states no defence, so the prosecution bears the burden on every element of the offence.

Classifier’s reasoning: mens rea word in the offence-creating words: knowingly, recklessly, for the purpose of obtaining, knowingly or recklessly.

What would breach regulation 17(3)?

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. Entering a figure on a form or return that is known to be wrong under the Arable Area Payments Regulations 1995.
  2. Leaving out something the form asks for, where the omission is what makes the answer misleading.
  3. Producing a document to an official that has been altered since it was issued.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine
£5,000
Standard scale
Level 5
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

this is the level 5 value when the instrument came into force (1995-07-31); the standard scale is keyed to the date the offence was committed, and for conduct today the same words mean an unlimited fine.

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
Revoked
Revoked by
The Arable Area Payments Regulations 1996
Revoked on
15 January 1997
Made
5 July 1995
In force from
31 July 1995
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: the instrument was revoked by a later instrument found in this corpus.

What the instrument is for

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

These Regulations apply throughout Great Britain. As specified below, they implement and supplement provisions of Council Regulation (EEC) No. 1765/92 (“the Council Regulation” ), which establishes a support system for producers of certain arable crops, and of the Commission Regulations made under it, namely Commission Regulations (EEC) Nos. 2294/92, 2295/92, 2780/92, 334/93 and 2595/93 and Commission Regulation (EC) No. 762/94. Regulation 2(1) defines these various Regulations, and the definitions include amendments to them. Under the support system established under the Council Regulation, producers of particular arable crops are entitled to receive a compensatory payment calculated according to the area which they have sown with such crops. The level of compensatory payment per hectare in a particular locality is determined (in accordance with Articles 4 and 5 of the Council Regulation) by multiplying an amount per tonne by the average yield per hectare for the production region in which the land lies. Member States are required to define production regions for the purposes of this calculation in accordance with the criteria set out in Article 3 of the Council Regulation, which permits the yields so calculated to be adjusted in order to take account of structural differences between production regions. The production regions in the Great Britain are defined in regulation 3(1), while regulation 3(2) sets out the method by which the yield calculated for each region should be adjusted. Regulation 4 provides for yield calculation in relation to oilseed rape. Article 7 of the Council Regulation requires all producers claiming compensatory payments to set aside part of their arable land, unless they come within the exception for small producers, as defined in Article 8(2) of the Council Regulation. Except in circumstances justified by objective criteria laid down by Member States, land qualifying to be set aside must have been previously farmed by the producer setting it aside for at least 2 years (Article 3(4) of Commission Regulation 762/94) and the minimum area of land which he sets aside in each production region must be in a specified ratio to the cropped land in that region for which he claims payment (Article 9(2) of the same Regulation). The circumstances in which producers are exempted from the first requirement are set out in regulation 6 and Schedule 1, and those in which producers are exempted from the second requirement are set out in regulation 7. To ensure protection of the environment, Member States are required to take appropriate measures relating to set-aside land (Article 3(3) of Commission Regulation (762/94). Regulation 8 and Schedules 2 and 3 specify the requirements to be met in relation to land set aside and set out how a green cover is to be established on land set aside. Article 7(7) of Council Regulation 1765/92 permits a producer to transfer his set-aside requirement to another producer, in accordance with a plan presented in advance to the Commission. Regulation 9 requires producers transferring their set-aside requirement in reliance on Article 7(7) to provide evidence to the Minister that that transfer is undertaken in accordance with the plan submitted by the UK to the European Commission. Land sown with specified categories of oilseed only qualifies for compensatory payment when seed is sown in accordance with locally recognised standards (Article 2(1)(d) of Commission Regulation (2294/92) and conforms to a quality policy established by the Member State in accordance with Article 3(1) of that Regulation. Regulation 10 sets out the qualifying requirements for cleaning, dressing and harvesting farm-saved rapeseed and the qualifying planting distances for particular types of rapeseed. The Regulations also— a prescribe the minimum size of an agricultural plot for which certain compensatory payments may be claimed (regulation 5); b require farmers, collectors and processors to keep, retain and produce records (regulations 11 and 12); c specify the reductions in compensatory payments applicable to breaches of requirements relating to land set aside (regulation 13); d prescribe the rate of interest payable where a compensatory payment is recovered by the appropriate authority in cases where recovery does not result from an error by that authority (regulation 14); e confer on authorised persons powers of entry for the purposes of the Regulations and require that such assistance be given to them for the exercise of their powers as they may reasonably request (regulations 15 and 16); and f create offences and penalties (regulation 17). The Regulations revoke and replace the Arable Area Payments Regulations 1994, and the Arable Area Payments (Amendment) Regulations 1994. A compliance cost assessment has been prepared and has been deposited in the Libraries of both Houses of Parliament.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

Other offences in the same 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 0.92.

Basis
the provision says a person is “guilty of an offence”; the provision states liability on summary conviction; the provision states a penalty in older drafting
Confidence
0.92 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