The Sea Fishing (Enforcement of Community Control Measures) Order 1994

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Order)

This Order revokes the Sea Fishing (Enforcement of Community Control Measures) Order 1993. It re-enacts those Community provisions relating to logbooks, actions to facilitate boarding, provision of boarding ladder and use of communications equipment and operator thereof (articles 3 and 4 of, and paragraphs 1 to 4 of the Schedule to, the Order). Additional provisions, set out in the Schedule to the Order, which provide for the enforcement of Council Regulation (EEC) 2847/93 (“the Council Regulation”) establishing a control system applicable to the Common Fisheries Policy are—

(1) requirements for Community fishing boats to give at least two hours advance notice of time and place of landing and quantities of species to be landed (Article 7 of the Council Regulation);

(2) requirement to submit landing declaration (Article 8.1 of the Council Regulation);

(3) requirement to submit sales note by the first seller or buyer (Article 9 of the Council Regulation);

(4) requirement for third country fishing boats to give at least 72 hours advance notice of time and place of landing (Article 10.1 of the Council Regulation);

(5) requirement to notify details of trans-shipments (Articles 11 and 12 of the Council Regulation);

(6) requirement on the transporter carrying fisheries products in a vehicle to provide a transportation document (Article 13 of the Council Regulation);

(7) requirement to keep logbooks, submit landing declarations and details of trans-shipments of catches outside Community waters (Article 17.2 of the Council Regulation);

(8) requirement to stow nets (Article 20.1 of the Council Regulation);

(9) prohibitions which apply on exhaustion of quota (Article 21 of the Council Regulation).

Offences for contravention of these Community provisions are to be found in articles 3 and 4 of, and paragraph 5 of the Schedule to, the Order.

For the purpose of enforcing the Community provisions specified in the Schedule, this Order confers on British sea-fishery officers powers to enter premises, to go on board fishing boats, to stop and search vehicles transporting fish, to examine fish, to require the production of documents, to search for and seize documents, to take a boat to the nearest convenient port and to seize fish and fishing gear (articles 6, 7 and 8 of the Order).

Provision is also made for the prosecution of offenders and for the punishment of anyone found guilty of furnishing false information or obstructing a British sea-fishery officer (articles 3(1) and (2) and 10 of the Order). The maximum penalties specified for such offences, and for offences relating to the Community provisions specified in the Schedule correspond, in the case of offences equivalent to those under the Sea Fish (Conservation) Act 1967 (c. 84), and the Sea Fisheries Act 1968 (c. 77), both as amended by the Fisheries Act 1981 (c. 29), to the penalties imposed for such offences by those Acts (articles 4 and 10 of the Order). The statutory maximum penalty specified in the Schedule is currently £5,000.

The Order provides powers for the recovery of fines imposed by a magistrates' court in England and Wales or Northern Ireland, or in Scotland by a sheriff (article 5 of the Order).

The Compliance Cost Assessment relating to this Order is available in the library of each House of Parliament. A copy of it can be obtained from Fisheries IV Division of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Room 432, Nobel House, 17 Smith Square, London SW1P 3JR.