UK Offence Report

Provision of information to the Board

article 15(1) of The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board Order 2008

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

1 It is an offence knowingly to provide false or misleading information relating to the requirements of this Order to the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board or

a subsidiary company.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 subsidiary company
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 (knowingly).

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.

What would breach article 15(1)?

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 Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board Order 2008.
  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
Unlimited
Standard scale
Level 5
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

level 5 is unlimited in England and Wales for offences committed on or after 12 March 2015 (LASPO 2012 s.85, S.I. 2015/664).

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
28 February 2008
In force from
Not determined
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 Order) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

This Order dissolves— a the British Potato Council; b the Home-Grown Cereals Authority; c the Horticultural Development Council; d the Meat and Livestock Commission; e the Milk Development Council. and replaces them with a new body, the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board. The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board has functions and duties relating to the following industries: beef, lamb and pigs, cereals and oilseeds, horticulture, milk and potatoes. It operates for each industry in the part of the United Kingdom specified in article 2. The Order contains provisions for the constitution and proceedings of the Board. Under article 5 the Board may establish a subsidiary company for each of the industries covered by the Order. The Board must raise levies relating to each industry (article 6). Details of payment of the levies, and the maximum permitted levy, are set out in Schedule 3. Under that Schedule, failure to make a return relating to a levy is an offence. If demanded by a set number of levy payers in any given sector, the Board must hold a ballot on whether or not the levy system should continue in that sector (articles 11 and 12). There are offences relating to the provision of information and record-keeping (article 15). The penalty for breach of the Order is a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale (currently£5,000). An impact assessment of the effect that this instrument will have on the costs of business and the voluntary sector is available at www.defra.gov.uk/farm/policy/levy-bodies/index.htmhttp://www.defra.gov.uk/farm/policy/levy-bodies/index.htm.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

What Parliament said

Mentions of this instrument in Hansard. Parliamentary material is reused under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.

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 0.90.

Basis
the provision says “it is an offence”; the provision says an offence is committed “if” something happens
Confidence
0.90 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