Agriculture Act 1967

Part I — Livestock and Meat Marketing

The Meat and Livestock Commission

The Meat and Livestock Commission.

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The Commission's committees.

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Commission's duties in connection with fatstock guaranteed prices and calf subsidies.

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Commission's functions in connection with Markets and Fairs (Weighing of Cattle) Acts.

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Systems for classification of carcases.

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Compulsory use of systems of classification of carcases.

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Systems of classifying meat, and codes of practice for butchers.

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Information as to retail meat prices.

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Powers to meet future developments in livestock and livestock products industries.

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Calf subsidies

Calf subsidy schemes.

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Supervision and enforcement of calf subsidy schemes.

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• (1) For the purpose of securing that payments under the Agriculture (Calf Subsidies) Act 1952 are made in proper cases only, the appropriate Minister may by order make provision—

• (a) for requiring that cattle or carcases shall be marked in such circumstances, in such manner, and by or under the supervision of such persons, as may be prescribed by or under the order,

• (b) for prohibiting the removal from slaughterhouses or other premises where cattle or carcases are required to be marked in pursuance of the order of any cattle or carcases to which the order applies which have not been so marked,

• (c) for enabling authorised officers of the appropriate Minister or of the Ministry of Agriculture for Northern Ireland, and authorised officers of the Commission where accompanying an authorised officer of the appropriate Minister, to enter on land used for the production, keeping, slaughter, grading or sale of cattle, or for the storage, grading, packing or sale of carcases, and to inspect any cattle or carcases found upon land so used,

• (d) for requiring the production by producers, dealers, persons owning or controlling slaughterhouses, auctioneers and other persons of books, accounts or records relating to the purchase, sale or use of cattle or carcases,

• (e) for any other matters for which provision appears to the appropriate Minister to be necessary or expedient for the purposes described in this subsection.

• (2) In section 6(1) of the Agriculture Act 1957 (under which imported livestock may be marked, and the importation of livestock controlled, for purposes which include that of securing that payments under Part I of that Act are made in proper cases only) the reference to the purposes there mentioned shall include a reference to the purpose of securing that payments under the Agriculture (Calf Subsidies) Act 1952 are made in proper cases only.

• (3) Section 7 of the Agriculture Act 1957 (which imposes penalties in relation to the provisions of section 5 of that Act, being provisions which correspond to subsection (1) of this section) shall apply in relation to an order under subsection (1) of this section as it applies in relation to an order under the said section 5.

• (4) An order made under subsection (1) of this section—

• (a) may provide for the delegation by the appropriate Minister of any functions conferred or imposed on him by the order,

• (b) may be varied or revoked by a subsequent order so made, and

• (c) shall be made by statutory instrument.

• (5) A statutory instrument containing an order under subsection (1) of this section shall be laid before Parliament after being made, and shall cease to have effect (without prejudice to anything previously done thereunder or to the making of a new order) on the expiration of a period of forty days, calculated in accordance with section 7(1) of the Statutory Instruments Act 1946, beginning with the day on which it is made unless within that period it has been approved by resolution of each House of Parliament.

• (6) As from such date as may be specified in an order in a statutory instrument made by the appropriate Minister, so much of section 1(4)(c) of the Agriculture (Calf Subsidies) Act 1952 as relates to the marking of calves, and sections 2 and 3 of that Act (which are superseded by the provisions of subsections (1) and (2) of this section) shall cease to have effect, and orders under subsection (1) of this section, and under section 6 of the Agriculture Act 1957 as extended by subsection (2) of this section, may contain such supplemental and incidental provisions as appear to the appropriate Minister expedient for effecting the transition from the provisions so repealed.

• (7) An order under this section may be made for England and Wales, for Scotland, for Northern Ireland, or for any two or all of those parts of the United Kingdom jointly.

• (8) In this and the last foregoing section " carcases " means carcases of cattle.

Beef Cow subsidies

New provision for payment of beef cow subsidies.

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Financial

Levy on industries to meet Commission's expenses.

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Levy: registration, returns and records.

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Ministers' contributions to Commission's expenses.

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Payments for scientific research.

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Collection of statutory levies by Commission.

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Commission's reserve fund.

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Commission's annual report and accounts.

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Supplemental

Directions to Commission by Ministers.

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Inquiries by Commission.

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Dissolution of Pig Industry Development Authority.

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Power of entry.

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Disclosure of information.

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Interpretation of Part I.

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PART II — FARM STRUCTURE AND FARM IMPROVEMENTS, AND PROMOTION OF AGRICULTURAL INVESTMENT

Farm Structure

Grants for amalgamations and boundary adjustments.

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• (1) The appropriate Minister may in accordance with a scheme and subject to section 50 of the Agriculture Act 1970 make, out of money provided by Parliament, grants of amounts determined in such manner as may be provided by or under the scheme in connection with the carrying out of any of the following transactions approved by him in pursuance of the scheme, that is to say—

• (a) . . . transactions for securing that agricultural land which is or forms part of an uncommercial unit, but which together with some other agricultural land could form an intermediate unit or commercial unit, shall be owned and occupied with that other land, or, if not so owned, occupied with that other land by a person who shall occupy any part of the resulting unit not owned by him as a tenant (as defined in the Agricultural Holdings Act 1986 or, in Scotland, the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act 1991, and

• (b) . . . transactions for securing that, where an intermediate unit or a commercial unit is not all in the same ownership, any part of it comes to be in the same ownership as the rest of that unit, or in the same ownership as some other part of that unit, but excluding transactions which bring into the same ownership and occupation two or more parts of the unit each of which could by itself form a commercial unit, and

• (bb) transactions for securing that, where the person occupying an intermediate unit or a commercial unit occupies any part or parts of it otherwise than as owner or as a tenant as defined in the Agricultural Holdings Act 1968 (or, in Scotland, the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act 1991), he comes to occupy that part or all those parts as owner or as such a tenant, and

• (c) . . . transfers or exchanges of agricultural land (or estates or interests in agricultural land) for the purpose of giving more satisfactory boundaries to one or more agricultural units;

and for the purposes of paragraph (a) above, such assumptions as the appropriate Minister may consider reasonable may be made as to the works and facilities which will be carried out or provided for the benefit of the unit to be formed.

Transactions within paragraphs (a), (b) and (bb) above are in this Part of this Act referred to as “amalgamations”, and transactions within paragraph (c) are in this Part of this Act referred to as “boundary adjustments”.

• (2) A scheme under this section may restrict the amalgamations and boundary adjustments to which it applies in any way, and may in particular exclude amalgamations of land which has reverted from being in single ownership or occupation or, as respects transactions within subsection (1)(bb) of this section, cases where after the transaction has been effected the unit is not in single ownership.

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• (4) A scheme under this section may make different provision for different circumstances; . . ..

• (5) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

• (6) Any approval in pursuance of a scheme under this section of an amalgamation or boundary adjustment—

• (a) may be given either before or, in any case where the appropriate Minister thinks fit, after . . . the amalgamation or boundary adjustment has been carried out;

• (b) may given subject to such conditions as the appropriate Minister may specify, and in particular subject to any condition as to the time within which the amalgamation or boundary adjustment is to be carried out or as to the carrying out or provision within a specified period of specified works or facilities appearing to the appropriate Minister to be necessary as a consequence of the amalgamation or boundary adjustment;

• (c) may be varied or withdrawn by the approiate Minister with the written consent of the person on whose application the approval was given;

and the appropriate Minister may, if he thinks fit, for the purposes of a claim for grant under section 29 of the Agriculture Act 1970 issue a certificate with respect to any work or facility that he considers it to be necessary or desirable as a consequence of an amalgamation, or to be necessary as a consequence of a boundary adjustment, approved by that Minister in pursuance of the scheme

• (7) After the payment of any grant under this section any grant under section 29 of the Agriculture Act 1970 in respect of any work or facility certified under subsection (6) above or any grant under subsection (1)(a) of the next following section in connection with an amalgamation the relevant unit shall be subject to the provisions of Schedule 3 to this Act and—

• (a) the appropriate Minister shall not approve . . . the amalgamation unless satisfied that all persons having an estate or interest in the relevant unit have given their written consent to the application of that Schedule to the relevant unit,

• (b) the relevant unit shall be, or be the part of, the agricultural unit or units specified for the purposes of this subsection by the appropriate Minister in the document giving his approval to the amalgamation, and

• (c) in the said Schedule 3 as applied by this subsection “relevant Exchequer payments” shall mean—

• (i) any such grant as aforesaid in respect of such expenditure as the appropriate Minister may certify as being expenditure related to the relevant unit, and

• (ii) such sum as the appropriate Minister may certify as the sum representing his administrative expenses (including an appropriate proportion of overhead expenses and other fixed or general expenses) incurred in connection with making the grant,

and “the relevant date” shall, for any grant and the related administrative expenses, be the date when the grant was paid.

• (8) In the case of the payment of any grant under this section or any such grant under section 29 of the Agriculture Act 1970 as is referred to in the last foregoing subsection in connection with a boundary adjustment the appropriate Minister may, if he thinks fit, designate in the document giving his approval to the boundary adjustment any land appearing to him to benefit from the boundary adjustment as land which, after the payment of that grant, is to be a relevant unit subject to the provisions of Schedule 3 to this Act, and paragraphs (a) and (c) of the last foregoing subsection shall apply in relation to the boundary adjustment as they apply in relation to an amalgamation.

• (9) The duration of a scheme under this section shall be a period not exceeding seven years, but that period may from time to time be extended by further schemes under this section for periods not exceeding seven years.

• (10) A grant shall not be made under section 16 of the Agriculture Act 1957 (which relates to grants towards costs of amalgamation and is superseded by this section) in respect of a transaction proposed in an application made under that section after the coming into force of the first scheme made under this section, and so much of subsection (2) of the said section 16 as limits the time within which applications may be made under that section shall cease to have effect.

• (11) The following enactments—

• (a) section 6(c) of the Hill Farming Act 1946,

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(under which grant under those Acts may be recovered by the appropriate Minister if there is a failure to carry out proposals), and any provision to the like effect in regulations made under section 77(3) of the Agriculture (Scotland) Act 1948 or section 22(4) of the Crofters (Scotland) Act 1955, shall not apply where in the opinion of the appropriate Minister the carrying out of the proposals is, as a consequence of an amalgamation or boundary adjustment approved in pursuance of a scheme under this section or in consequence of the carrying out or provision of works or facilities certified under subsection (6) thereof, impracticable or to no purpose or unduly expensive.

Grants for individuals relinquishing occupation of uncommercial units.

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• (1) The appropriate Minister may in accordance with a scheme make a grant by way of a lump sum payment or an annuity to or for the benefit of an individual who in prescribed circumstances relinquishes his occupation of, or of a part of, an uncommercial unit of agricultural land—

• (a) where the relinquishment of all or any part of that uncommercial unit is effected as part of an amalgamation approved in pursuance of a scheme under section 26 of this Act, or

• (b) in accordance with arrangements which the appropriate Minister or, subject to the provisions of Part III of this Act, a Rural Development Board makes with him (whether or not his landlord or any other person is a third party) to enable the appropriate Minister or the Board to dispose of the unit so that it is owned or occupied with other land, or so as to improve the shape of any agricultural units, or

• (c) subject to the provisions of Part III of this Act, in accordance with arrangements approved by a Rural Development Board as being for the purpose of facilitating the afforestation of land in the area of the Board, or

• (d) where the grant is made in pursuance of provisions of a scheme implementing, or arising out of or related to, an EU obligation.

• (2) A scheme under this section—

• (a) may, subject to any prescribed exceptions, require the individual to have been in occupation of the whole of the uncommercial unit for a prescribed period,

• (b) may exclude an individual who occupied the uncommercial unit under a short-term letting as defined in the scheme.

• (c) may apply to the individual a test by reference to the income (calculated in a prescribed way) derived from the trade or business of, or employment in, agriculture including, if the scheme so provides, income so derived by the individual’s wife or husband or partner or by any other person jointly occupying the land.

• (3) A scheme under this section may authorise the making of grant subject to such conditions as the appropriate Minister may specify.

• (4) Grants shall not be payable under this section to any one individual in respect of more than one uncommercial unit, and a scheme under this section shall contain provisions for securing that the amount of the grant payable in respect of an uncommercial unit occupied by more than one individual is an amount which is not more than approximately equivalent to the amount which would be payable if it had been occupied by a single individual.

• (5) A scheme under this section may provide that, after the death of a person in receipt of a grant by way of annuity, grant under this section of an amount specified in the scheme may be payable to a surviving widow or widower.

• (5A) A scheme under this section may make provision, in a case where a person who has submitted an application for a grant under this section, and who has in prescribed circumstances either relinquished or become under an obligation to relinquish occupation of the uncommercial unit of agricultural land in question, subsequently dies before the application has been dealt with, for the application to be proceeded with after the death and for grants under this section of such respective amounts as may be determined by or under the scheme to be payable either—

• (a) by way of annuity—

• (i) in respect of any period after the relinquishment and before the death, for the benefit of the deceased’s estate; and