Cereals Marketing Act 1965 (repealed)

Part I — Constitution and Non-Trading Functions of Home-Grown Cereals Authority

Constitution of Authority

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Bonus payments and loans in respect of forward contracts

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• (1) The Authority may (and, in so far as they are required to do so by subsection (3) of this section, the Authority shall) prepare and submit to the appropriate Minister or Ministers one or more schemes under this section.

• (2) Every such scheme shall provide for the making by the Authority of bonus payments in respect of forward contracts which—

• (a) are contracts for the sale of home-grown cereals of a kind, and grown in a part of the United Kingdom, to which the scheme relates, and

• (b) are contracts made by the growers of such cereals.

• (3) Without prejudice to any power of the Authority to prepare a scheme under this section with respect to any other kind of home-grown cereals, or to include any other kind of home-grown cereals in a scheme prepared in pursuance of this subsection, it shall be the duty of the Authority, as soon as practicable after they are established, to prepare and submit to the appropriate Minister or Ministers one or more schemes under this section comprising, or together comprising, wheat and barley grown in all parts of the United Kingdom.

• (4) Any scheme under this section may include provision for the making or guaranteeing by the Authority of loans to growers of home-grown cereals in respect of forward contracts made by them for the sale of such cereals; and (either in addition to, or instead of, the inclusion of any such provision in a scheme under this section) the Authority may make arrangements for the making or guaranteeing of such loans by other persons on the recommendation of the Authority.

• (5) Where a scheme under this section includes any such provision as is mentioned in the last preceding subsection, the scheme shall also include provision whereby any person who—

• (a) satisfies the Authority that in the ordinary course of business he makes loans to farmers to provide them with working capital, and that a grower of home-grown cereals has applied to him for such a loan, or has received from him such a loan which has not yet been repaid, or

• (b) satisfies the Authority that he extends credit to farmers in the ordinary course of a business of supplying goods or services required for agricultural purposes, and that a grower of home-grown cereals has applied to him for credit to be so extended, or has received from him credit so extended which is still outstanding,

and who (in either case) fulfils such other requirements (if any) as may be determined in accordance with the scheme, may request the Authority, and the Authority shall thereupon be required, to furnish to him such information as may be determined in accordance with the scheme with respect to loans made to that grower by the Authority in pursuance of the scheme.

Bonus payments in respect of deliveries of cereals

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• (1) The Authority may also prepare and submit to the appropriate Minister or Ministers one or more schemes under this section ; and any such scheme may relate—

• (a) either to all kinds of home-grown cereals or to one or more kinds of home-grown cereals specified in the scheme, and

• (b) either to the whole of the United Kingdom or to any part of the United Kingdom so specified.

• (2) Any scheme under this section shall provide for the making by the Authority of bonus payments in respect of cereals which, being cereals of a kind, and grown in a part of the United Kingdom, to which the scheme relates, are (whether in pursuance of a forward contract or not) delivered at such time of the year as may be specified in the scheme.

General provisions as to schemes under ss. 2 and 3

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• (1) A scheme under section 2 or section 3 of this Act shall not have effect unless it is approved by the appropriate Minister or Ministers.

• (2) Any such scheme may either specify the rates of any bonus payments to be made under the scheme or may provide for those rates to be determined annually by the Authority, with the approval of the appropriate Minister or Ministers, for each year in respect of which the scheme is in force.

• (3) Any bonus payment to be made in pursuance of any such scheme shall be paid to the grower who makes the forward contract or, as the case may be, delivers the cereals in question, or, if the Authority are satisfied that the interest of the grower in the payment has passed to some other person, shall be paid to that other person.

• (4) Subject to the provisions of subsections (2) and (3) of this section, any such scheme shall include provision as to the circumstances in which, and any conditions subject to which, bonus payments are to be made in pursuance of the scheme.

• (5) Where, in pursuance of subsection (4) of section 2 of this Act, a scheme under that section includes provision for the making or guaranteeing of loans by the Authority, the scheme shall include provision as to the circumstances in which, and any conditions subject to which, loans may be made or guaranteed by the Authority in pursuance of the scheme.

Supplementary provisions as to schemes

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• (1) Any scheme under section 2 or section 3 of this Act may be varied or revoked by a subsequent scheme thereunder.

• (2) Where a scheme under either of those sections is for the time being in force, and the Authority represent to the appropriate Minister or Ministers that the scheme should be revoked without being replaced by another scheme, the appropriate Minister or Ministers may by order revoke the scheme.

• (3) Any scheme under either of those sections, and any order under the last preceding subsection, may contain such transitional, incidental and supplementary provisions as appear to the Authority, or Co the appropriate Minister or Ministers, as the case may be, to be necessary or expedient.

Further non-trading functions of Authority

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Power to confer additional non-trading functions on Authority

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Part II

Orders empowering Authority to deal in home-grown cereals

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• (1) If it is represented to the Ministers by the Authority, and the Ministers are satisfied, that the purpose specified in section 1(1) of this Act cannot be adequately fulfilled unless the Authority are empowered to perform trading functions, the Ministers may make an order under this section.

• (2) Subject to the following provisions of this Part of this Act, any order under this section shall empower the Authority, for the purpose specified in section 1(1) of this Act, to perform either or both of the following functions, as may be specified in the order, that is to say—

• (a) to buy home-grown cereals otherwise than by way of forward contracts;

• (b) to buy home-grown cereals by way of forward con tracts for delivery at times when, in the opinion of the Authority, deliveries of home-grown cereals would otherwise be inadequate.

• (3) Any power conferred on the Authority in pursuance of this section to buy home-grown cereals shall include power to sell them, whether by way of forward contracts or otherwise, and to transport, store and otherwise deal with any cereals which the Authority have bought.

• (4) In buying home-grown cereals, in the performance of their functions under this Part of this Act, the Authority shall have regard to what, among persons who process home-grown cereals, is the normal practice in respect of buying them from established dealers, or employing such dealers as their agents in buying them, and shall conform to that practice so far as appears to the Authority to be practicable to do so.

• (5) Any order under this section may be varied or revoked by a subsequent order thereunder, whether in pursuance of representations made by the Authority or without any such representations; but the variation or revocation of an order under this section shall not affect the exercise by the Authority, in relation to any cereals which they have bought before the variation or revocation takes effect, of any of the powers referred to in subsection (3) of this section.

• (6) Any order made under this section shall cease to have effect at the end of the period of forty days beginning with the day on which the order is made (but without prejudice to anything previously done under the order or to the making of a new order) unless before the end of that period the order is approved by resolution of each House of Parliament.

• (7) In reckoning any period for the purposes of the last preceding subsection, no account shall be taken of any time during which Parliament is dissolved or prorogued or during which both Houses are adjourned for more than four days.

Restrictions on trading dependent on market price of cereals

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• (1) Notwithstanding anything in the last preceding section, any power of the Authority to buy home-grown cereals of any kind, in pursuance of an order under that section, shall not become exercisable until a time when the average market price for the prescribed quality of home-grown cereals of that kind is, and has throughout a prescribed period been, below a price determined (by reference to minimum import prices levels) in accordance with the provisions of Schedule 2 to this Act.

• (2) Where the condition as to average market price specified in the preceding subsection is fulfilled in respect of any kind of home-grown cereals, then (subject to the following provisions of this Part of this Act) any power of the Authority to buy homegrown cereals of that kind, in pursuance of an order under the last preceding section, shall become exercisable and shall continue to be exercisable until a time when the average market price for the prescribed quality of home-grown cereals of that kind is, and has throughout a prescribed period been, at or above a price determined as mentioned in the preceding subsection, and shall then cease to be exercisable.

• (3) Where, in the case of any kind of home-grown cereals, the condition as to average market price last-mentioned in the last preceding subsection is fulfilled, and at any subsequent time the condition as to average market price specified in subsection (1) of this section is again fulfilled, any power of the Authority to buy home-grown cereals of that kind, in pursuance of an order under the last preceding section, shall (subject to the following provisions of this Part of this Act) again become exercisable; and the provisions of the last preceding subsection, and the preceding provisions of this subsection, shall have effect as often as the conditions referred to in those provisions respectively are fulfilled.

• (4) Nothing in this section shall be construed as empowering the Authority to buy home-grown cereals as mentioned in paragraph (a), or as mentioned in paragraph (b), of subsection (2) of the last preceding section at any time when, in consequence of the revocation or variation of an order under that section, the Authority have ceased to be empowered to buy home-grown cereals as mentioned in the paragraph in question.

• (5) In this section " prescribed " means prescribed by regulations made by the Ministers ; and any such regulations may make provision as to the way in which, for the purposes of this section, the average market price for any prescribed quality of home-grown cereals of any kind is to be determined at any particular time, and (without prejudice to the application to any such regulations of section 23(1) of this Act) any such regulations may prescribe different periods for the purposes of subsection (1) and subsection (2) of this section respectively.

• (6) In this section, and in the following provisions of this Part of this Act, references to buying home-grown cereals are references to entering into contracts (whether forward contracts or not) for the purchase of such cereals.

Further limitations on trading

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• (1) At any time while an order under section 8 of this Act is in force, the Ministers may, if they consider it necessary or expedient to do so, by regulations prohibit the Authority from buying home-grown cereals of a kind prescribed by the regulations during such part of the year as may be so prescribed ; and (without prejudice to the application to any such regulations of section 23(1) of this Act) if the order empowers the Authority to buy home-grown cereals in both of the ways specified in section 8(2) of this Act, any such prohibition may either extend to the buying of home-grown cereals in both of those ways or may be limited to one of them, as the Ministers may determine.

• (2) The Authority shall not have power to enter into forward contracts in one year for the purchase of cereals for delivery in. a subsequent year.

• (3) Any prohibition imposed by or under this section shall be in addition to any restrictions imposed by the last preceding section.

Sale of cereals purchased by Authority

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• (1) Where in the performance of their functions under this Part of this Act the Authority buy any cereals in a particular year, it shall be their duty to sell those cereals for delivery either before the end of that year or not later than one month after the end of that year.

• (2) In respect of each year in which an order under section 8 of this Act is in force (whether it is in force during the whole of the year or during a part of it) the Authority shall, as soon as practicable after the end of the month immediately following the end of the year.—

• (a) if no home-grown cereals were held by, or at the disposal of, the Authority at the end of that month, send to the Ministers a certificate stating that fact, or

• (b) in any other case, send to the Ministers a certificate stating the quantity of home-grown cereals of each kind held by, or at the disposal of, the Authority at the end of that month.

Part III — Financial and Supplementary Provisions

Financial

Contributions by Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food

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Orders prescribing rates of levy

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Alternative methods of raising levy

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• (1) In addition to the preparation of an estimate or estimates in accordance with the last preceding section, the Authority shall, before the beginning of each year, consider, in respect of each kind of home-grown cereals, whether it is their intention that any levy to be imposed for that year under this Part of this Act shall be imposed in accordance with section 15 of this Act or shall be imposed in pursuance of a scheme under section 16 of this Act; and—

• (a) if, in the case of any kind of home-grown cereals, they intend that a levy for that year shall be imposed in pursuance of a scheme under section 16 of this Act which is then in force, they shall pass a resolution to that effect and shall publish notice of that resolution in the London, Edinburgh and Belfast Gazettes, or

• (b) if, in the case of any kind of home-grown cereals, they intend that a levy for that year shall be imposed in pursuance of such a scheme, but no such scheme is then in force, they shall submit such a scheme to the Ministers before the beginning of that year and shall publish in the London, Edinburgh and Belfast Gazettes notice of the submission of the scheme.

• (2) Where for any year the Ministers have made an order under the last preceding section specifying a rate of levy for that year in respect of any kind of home-grown cereals, the following provisions of this section shall have effect.

• (3) If in that year a scheme under section 16 of this Act is in force in respect of that kind of home-grown cereals, and the Authority have published in respect of that kind of home-grown cereals such a notice as is mentioned in paragraph (a) or paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of this section, a levy for that year shall be imposed in respect of that kind of home-grown cereals as mentioned in section 16(6) of this Act.

• (4) In any case not falling within the last preceding subsection, a levy for that year shall be imposed in respect of that kind of home-grown cereals as mentioned in section 15(1) of this Act.

Levy recovered wholly or mainly by deduction

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• (1) Where, in respect of any year (in this section referred to as "the relevant year"), a levy is, by virtue of subsection (4) of the last preceding section, to be imposed in accordance with this section in respect of any kind of home-grown cereals (in this section referred to as " the relevant kind of cereals "), a levy for that year shall be imposed on registered growers of the relevant kind of cereals, at the rate specified in relation thereto in the order for that year made under section 13 of this Act and in accordance with such provisions as to quantity or acreage as are contained in that order.

• (2) If one or more deficiency payments would, apart from this section, be paid to or in respect of a registered grower of the relevant kind of cereals in respect of the relevant year, the amount of the levy which by virtue of this section is imposed on him for that year shall, so far as it appears to the appropriate Minister or Ministers to be practicable to do so, be deducted from that payment or (if more than one) from the aggregate of those payments, and the payment or payments shall be reduced accordingly.

• (3) In so far as the amount, or any part of the amount, of the levy imposed on a registered grower by virtue of this section cannot be deducted as mentioned in the last preceding subsection, the Authority may recover it in either of the ways mentioned in subsections (4) and (5) of this section, or partly in the one way and partly in the other; and for the purposes of this subsection a certificate issued by the appropriate Minister or Ministers, stating that the amount of a levy, or such part of that amount as may be specified in the certificate, cannot be so deducted, shall be conclusive evidence of the fact so stated.

• (4) If one or more bonus payments are payable to or in respect of that registered grower under Part I of this Act in respect of forward contracts made by him in the relevant year which relate to the relevant kind of cereals, or in respect of any of that kind of cereals delivered in that year, the amount of the levy, or the part of it in question, as the case may be, may be deducted by the Authority from that bonus payment or (if more than one) from the aggregate of those bonus payments, and the payment or payments shall be reduced accordingly.