Weights and Measures Act 1985

9 Dual marking and conversion charts

(1) The Secretary of State may make regulations—

(a) requiring or authorising a person who uses a metric unit for trade to afford, for explanatory purposes, information giving the equivalent in the imperial system of the relevant quantity in the metric system, and

(b) specifying the manner in which the information is to be given, and in particular specifying the cases in which any obligation to give information in metric units is to be extended to include the same information in imperial units.

(2) The Secretary of State may make regulations requiring or authorising the display on premises where metric units are used for trade of conversion tables or other material for converting metric units into imperial units.

(3) Regulations under this section—

(a) may prescribe the form and manner in which any information or other material is to be given or displayed,

(b) may prescribe appropriate conversion factors by reference to which, in prescribed cases or circumstances, an amount expressed in imperial units is to be treated as equivalent to a given amount expressed in metric units,

(c) may prescribe the persons to whom, and the cases and circumstances in which, the regulations apply and may make different provision for different persons, cases or circumstances,

(d) may contain such consequential, incidental or supplementary provisions as appear to the Secretary of State to be expedient.

(4) A person contravening regulations made under this section shall be guilty of an offence.

(5) In this section " unit" in the expressions " metric unit" and " imperial unit" means any unit of measurement of length, area, volume, capacity, mass or weight.

(6) Regulations under this section imposing obligations apply whether or not the relevant imperial unit may lawfully be used for trade, and regulations authorising, but not requiring, anything to be done authorise it to be done notwithstanding that the relevant imperial unit may not be lawfully used for trade, but do not in any other respect authorise what is unlawful.