UK Offence Report

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

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

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

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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) (Wales) 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
Status not determined
Made
12 July 2016
In force from
2 August 2016
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 to enforce, in Wales, certain provisions of Regulation (EU) No 609/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council on 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, p. 35) (“Regulation (EU) 609/2013”). Regulation (EU) 609/2013 repeals and replaces a regime regulating (mostly, but not exclusively) compositional and labelling requirements which must be met by certain groups of food before such food may be marketed in Member States. These Regulations provide for the enforcement of certain provisions of Regulation (EU) No 609/2013 and provide for an 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 (Wales) Regulations 2000, the Processed Cereal-based Foods and Baby Foods for Infants and Young Children (Wales) Regulations 2004, the Infant Formula and Follow-on Formula (Wales) Regulations 2007, and the Food for Particular Nutritional Uses (Addition of Substances for Specific Nutritional Purposes) (Wales) Regulations 2009. Regulation 4 and Schedule 2 apply, with modifications, certain provisions of the Food Safety Act 1990 (“the Act”). This includes the application (with modifications) of section 10(1) of the Act, enabling an improvement notice to be served requiring compliance with a specified EU requirement of Regulation (EU) No 609/2013. The specified requirements are listed in Schedule 1. The provisions, as applied and modified, make the failure to comply with an improvement notice a criminal offence. Schedule 3 amends statutory instruments applying to this area of regulation 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. The Welsh Ministers’ Code of Practice on the carrying out of Regulatory Impact Assessments was considered in relation to these Regulations. As a result, it was not considered necessary to carry out a regulatory impact assessment as to the likely costs and benefits of complying with these Regulations.

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 0.65.

Basis
the penalty comes from the enabling Act rather than from this instrument
Confidence
0.65 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