UK Offence Report

Offence and penalty

regulation 11(1) of The Reduction and Prevention of Agricultural Diffuse Pollution (England) Regulations 2018

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 A person who fails to comply with the requirements of any of regulations 3 to 10 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
failing to comply with a notice or direction
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 11(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. On these words an offence is committed where a person fails to comply with the requirements of any of regulations 3 to 10.
  2. Being served with a notice under the Reduction and Prevention of Agricultural Diffuse Pollution (England) Regulations 2018 and doing nothing by the date it specifies.
  3. Doing part of what the notice requires, where it required all of it.
  4. Disagreeing with the notice and ignoring it, rather than using whatever appeal the instrument provides.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Either way — magistrates’ court or Crown Court
Maximum fine
Unlimited
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

'to a fine' with no stated maximum.

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
5 February 2018
In force from
2 April 2018
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 set out provisions to reduce and prevent the pollution of waters from diffuse agricultural sources and apply to persons who have custody or control of agricultural land in England (“land managers”). These Regulations implement, along with other existing measures, Article 11(3)(h) of Directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a framework for Community action in the field of water policy (OJ No L 327, 22.12.2000, p 1), which requires Member States to implement basic measures to prevent or control the input of pollutants from diffuse sources. Regulations 3 to 8 set out provisions on the application of organic manure and manufactured fertiliser to agricultural land. This includes a requirement to take into account factors that indicate a significant risk of agricultural diffuse pollution. For cultivated land only, the results of soil sampling and analysis must also be taken into account. Regulation 9 imposes restrictions on the storage of organic manure and regulation 10 establishes requirements for the management of livestock and soil. Regulations 4 and 10 also require land managers to take reasonable precautions to prevent agricultural diffuse pollution. Illustrative lists of reasonable precautions are provided. Regulations 11 to 14 provide that failure to comply with these Regulations is an offence punishable by a fine on summary conviction or on conviction on indictment. The Environment Agency, the body which has the function of enforcing these Regulations, can also impose civil sanctions pursuant to provisions in the Environmental Civil Sanctions (England) Order 2010 (S.I. 2010/1157). Regulation 15 gives the Secretary of State the power to issue guidance to the Environment Agency on how it should exercise its functions under these Regulations. The Environment Agency must have regard to any such guidance when exercising its functions under these Regulations. A full impact assessment of the effect that this instrument will have on the costs of business, the voluntary sector and the public sector is available from the Water Quality Division, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Nobel House, 17 Smith Square, London SW1P 3JR, and is published with the Explanatory Memorandum alongside the instrument on www.legislation.gov.uk.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

How this became law

This instrument became law without a debate or a vote. Under the negative procedure it took effect unless a motion to stop it succeeded, and none was tabled.

Neither House could have amended it. A statutory instrument is put to each House as a whole thing, to be approved or not; the Houses can reject an instrument or record their regret, but they cannot change a word of it. That is the constitutional position for every offence on this site.

The full procedural history →

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