UK Offence Report

Contravention of The Food for Specific Groups (Information and Compositional Requirements) (England)…

the instrument as a whole of The Food for Specific Groups (Information and Compositional Requirements) (England) Regulations 2016

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 Food for Specific Groups (Information and Compositional Requirements) (England) Regulations 2016.

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
Revoked
Revoked by
The Food for Specific Groups (Food for Special Medical Purposes for Infants, Infant Formula and Follow-on Formula) (Information and Compositional Requirements) (Amendment etc.) (England) Regulations 2020
Made
28 June 2016
In force from
20 July 2016
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 make provision to enforce, in England, Regulation (EU) No 609/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council, on the provisions of food intended for infants and young children, food for special medical purposes, and total diet replacement for weight control and repealing Council Directive 92/52/EEC, Commission Directives 96/8/EC, 1999/21/EC, 2006/125/EC and 2006/141/EC, Directive 2009/39/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council and Commission Regulations (EC) No 41/2009 and (EC) No 953/2009 (OJ No L 181, 29.6.2013, p35). These Regulations make provision for the enforcement of the requirements of Regulation (EU) No 609/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council, and also insert an alternative improvement notice enforcement regime alongside existing domestic criminal sanctions in the Foods Intended for Use in Energy Restricted Diets for Weight Reduction Regulations 1997, the Medical Food (England) Regulations 2000, the Processed Cereal-based Foods and Baby Foods for Infants and Young Children (England) Regulations 2003, the Infant Formula and Follow-on Formula (England) Regulations 2007, and the Food for Particular Nutritional Uses (Addition of Substances for Specific Nutritional Purposes) (England) Regulations 2009. Regulation 4 and Schedule 2 provides for the enforcement of requirements specified by Regulation (EU) No 609/2013 by applying certain provisions of the Food Safety Act 1990 (1990 c.16) (“the Act”), with modifications to these Regulations. This includes the application (with modifications) of section 10(1) of the Act, enabling an improvement notice to be served requiring compliance with specified EU requirements of Regulation (EU) No 609/2013. The list of specified EU requirements is contained in column 1 of Schedule 1, as read with the provisions in column 2. The provisions, as applied and modified, make a failure to comply with an improvement notice a criminal offence. Regulation 7 requires the Secretary of State to review the operation and effect of these Regulations and publish a report within five years after they come into force and within every five years after that. Following a review it will fall to the Secretary of State to consider whether the Regulations should remain as they are, or be revoked, or be amended. A further instrument would be needed to revoke the Regulations or to amend them. Schedule 3 amends statutory instruments concerning this area of regulation, applying the modified provisions of the Act, to enable an improvement notice to be served requiring compliance with relevant regulations. The provisions, as applied and modified in the statutory instruments, make the failure to comply with an improvement notice a criminal offence. Schedule 4 amends Article 2(1)(fb) of the Co-ordination of Regulatory Enforcement (Enforcement Action) Order 2009 to take account of the fact that section 10 of the Act has been applied and modified by these Regulations. This means that serving an improvement notice under s.10 of the Act as applied and modified by these Regulations and the Food for Specific Groups (Information and Compositional Requirements) (Wales) Regulations 2016 is to be regarded as enforcement action for the purposes of Part 2 of the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008.

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 0.61.

Basis
the penalty comes from the enabling Act rather than from this instrument
Confidence
0.61 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