UK Offence Report

3 Subject to paragraph (4), a person who contravenes paragraph (1) or (2) commits an offence.

regulation 6(3) of The Disclosure of State Pension Credit Information (Warm Home Discount) Regulations 2011

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

3 Subject to paragraph (4),

a person who contravenes paragraph (1) or (2) commits an offence.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
contravening a requirement of the instrument
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

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.

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

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision.

What would breach regulation 6(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. On these words an offence is committed where a person contravenes paragraph (1) or (2).
  2. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Disclosure of State Pension Credit Information (Warm Home Discount) Regulations 2011, whatever the reason for doing it.
  3. Where the requirement is a positive duty, letting the time for performing it pass without performing it.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Either way — magistrates’ court or Crown Court
Maximum fine
£5,000
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined
Maximum prison (on indictment)
1 year

expressed as the statutory maximum (the prescribed sum): the same words mean £5,000 in England and Wales and £10,000 in Scotland.

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
19 July 2011
In force from
20 July 2011
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 authorise the sharing of data between the Secretary of State and electricity suppliers and should be read in conjunction with the Warm Home Discount Regulations 2011 (S.I. 2011/1033) (the “Warm Home Regulations”) which enable the Secretary of State to require certain electricity suppliers (essentially, those who hold a licence under section 6(1)(d) of the Electricity Act 1989) to provide a rebate to certain customers who are in receipt of state pension credit (or who have a partner who is in receipt of state pension credit). These Regulations authorise the Secretary of State to supply to an electricity supplier information about persons whom the Secretary of State believes are ‘qualifying customers’ of that supplier. Regulation 3 explains who are qualifying customers for this purpose. Regulation 4 allows an electricity supplier to provide information about its domestic customers to the Secretary of State to enable the Secretary of State to match the electricity supplier’s list of customers with the Secretary of State’s list of recipients of state pension credit. This is to enable the Secretary of State to identify the supplier’s customers whom the Secretary of State believes to be qualifying customers. By virtue of regulation 5, the Secretary of State can supply information about such persons identified as qualifying customers of a supplier to that supplier, who is then obliged to provide those customers with a rebate by virtue of (and in accordance with) the Warm Home Regulations. Regulation 4 also permits the supply of customer information by electricity suppliers to the Secretary of State to enable the testing of data matching processes by the Secretary of State. Regulations 6 and 7 create offences for improper disclosure of information that has been shared between the Secretary of State and electricity suppliers by virtue of these Regulations, as well as setting out defences that may be available. Regulation 8 revokes the State Pension Credit (Disclosure of Information) (Electricity Suppliers) Regulations 2010, which are superseded by these Regulations. An impact assessment has not been produced for these Regulations as no impact on the private or voluntary sector is foreseen.

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.

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 “commits an offence”
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