Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1949

4 Payments by Minister in respect of certain artificial insemination services.

(1) Where any centre providing services of artificial insemination for cattle (hereafter in this section referred to as a " cattle insemination centre ") in respect of which a licence is or was for the time being in force under section seventeen of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1943, provides or has provided, during the period beginning with the first day of October, nineteen hundred and forty-seven and ending with the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and fifty-one, a service of artificial insemination from beef bulls of such breeds as may be approved by the appropriate Minister, being a service provided free of charge or for charges lower than the lowest charges made for any such service provided by that centre from any other bulls,—

(a) the appropriate Minister may, with the consent of the Treasury make out of moneys provided by Parliament payments to the person maintaining the centre not exceeding, in the case of a service free of charge, the amounts which would have been payable by persons availing themselves of the service if it had been provided for the same charges as the lowest charges aforesaid or, in any other case, the difference between such amounts as aforesaid and-the amounts actually paid or payable by such persons as aforesaid ; and

(b) if, as respects the whole or any part of the said period, a grant under section two of the Agriculture (Artificial Insemination) Act, 1946, is not or was not payable in respect of the centre providing the service aforesaid, the appropriate Minister may, with the consent of the Treasury, make out of moneys provided by Parliament additional payments to the person maintaining the centre not exceeding the total amount of the expenses which the Minister is satisfied have been reasonably incurred in providing the said service during the said period or, as the case may be, that part thereof, less the amount of any payments made under the preceding paragraph in respect of such provision and, where the service is not free of charge, the amounts paid or payable by persons availing themselves of the service.

(2) Where any such service as aforesaid is or has been provided by any such cattle insemination centre with semen furnished by any other such centre directly, or through another such centre, the appropriate Minister may apportion between the centres concerned the payments that would otherwise have been made under the preceding subsection to the first-mentioned centre.

(3) The appropriate Minister may give to the person maintaining any such cattle insemination centre directions requiring him to provide such a service as aforesaid during any period specified in the directions (being a period in respect of which payments may be made under this section), and the directions may specify the extent and nature of the service to be provided.

(4) Payments made under this section shall be taken into account in calculating, for the purposes of the Agriculture (Artificial Insemination Act, 1946, the losses incurred in the operation of any cattle insemination centre.