UK Offence Report

Amendment of the Recall of MPs Act 2015 (Recall Petition) Regulations 2016

regulation 8(3) of The Mayoral and Police and Crime Commissioner Elections, Recall Petitions and Referendums (Ballot Secrecy, Candidates and Undue Influence) Regulations 2023

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 After regulation 123 (requirement of secrecy) insert— Influencing persons signing

a petition 123A

1 A person who—

a is with or near

a person at

a petition signing place when that other person has received

a signing sheet, and

b intends to influence that other person to sign that petition or to refrain from signing that petition, 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
breaching the provision
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 8(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. Doing what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Mayoral and Police and Crime Commissioner Elections, Recall Petitions and Referendums (Ballot Secrecy, Candidates and Undue Influence) Regulations 2023.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine
Unlimited
Maximum prison (summary)
6 months

'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
25 October 2023
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 Regulations) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations make provision relating to sections 8, 10 and 15 and Part 5 of the Elections Act 2022 (c. 37) (“the Act”). Regulations 3, 4(4), 9 and 11 make provision to replicate the provision for “commonly used names” of candidates made by section 10 of the Act, including replacing the nomination paper, for other election types. These regulations also make provision to implement Part 5 of the Act (disqualification of offenders for holding elective office etc.) by enabling a returning officer to hold a candidate’s nomination paper invalid if the person submitting that nomination paper is subject to a disqualification order under section 30 of the Act, and by replacing the consent to nomination form with a new form which includes a declaration that a person is not disqualified by reason of a disqualification order. In addition the forms for local authority mayoral elections (both single and combined authorities) are amended to reflect the amended candidacy rights for EU citizens introduced by section 15 of the Act. Regulations 4(3), 5(b), 6(b), 7(2)(b) and (3)(b) and 8(4) make provision to apply or replicate section 114A of the Representation of the People Act 1983 (introduced by section 8 of the Act) so that the new offence of undue influence applies to elections and referendums covered in these regulations. Regulation 10 makes provision that ensures that the date of a vacancy in the office of a combined authority mayor is determined in accordance with section 31 of the Act if that vacancy has arisen as a result of a disqualification order. Regulations 4(2), 5(a), 6(a), 7(2)(a) and (3)(a) and 8(2) and (3) make provision to apply the offences in the Ballot Secrecy Act 2023 (c. 12) to Police and Crime Commissioner elections and recall petitions as well as to local government, council tax and neighbourhood planning referendums. Regulation 2 makes provision for the use of alternative forms of candidate’s consent to nomination (as set out in Schedule 1) for single authority and combined authority mayoral elections for which the date of poll specified in the notice of election is on or between 2nd and 6th May 2024, which reflects the period between the dates on which Part 5 of the Act and section 15 of the Act respectively take effect. A full regulatory impact assessment has not been prepared as this instrument will have no, or no significant, impact on the private, voluntary or public sector.

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 0.92.

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