The Rural Development Grants (Agriculture) (Amendment) Regulations 1996

Amendment of the previous regulations

2.—(1) The Rural Development Grants (Agriculture) (No. 2) Regulations 1995(1) shall be amended in accordance with the following provisions of this Regulation.

(2) In regulation 2 (interpretation)—

(a) after the definition of “the Minister” there shall be inserted the following definition—

““the operational programme” means the operational programme approved by the Commission Decision referred to in paragraph 10 of the Schedule;”; and

(b) in the definition of “sub-programme”, for the phrase “appearing in the Schedule” there shall be substituted the phrase “referred to in paragraphs 4 to 9 of the Schedule”.

(3) In regulation 5 (approval of operations) after the words “a sub-programme” there shall be inserted the words “or the operational programme”.

(4) In regulation 11 (recovery of grant)—

(a) for the words “Article 24.3” in regulation 11(2) there shall be substituted the words “Article 24”; and

(b) after regulation 11(3) there shall be added the following paragraph—

“(4) Before exercising the powers of revocation and recovery referred to in paragraph (1), the Minister shall—

(a) give the beneficiary a written explanation of the reasons for the proposed exercise;

(b) afford the beneficiary an opportunity to make written representations within such time as the Minister considers reasonable; and

(c) consider any representations made by the beneficiary.”.

(5) In the Schedule (meaning of “Community legislation”)—

(a) at the end of—

(i) paragraph 1, and

(ii) paragraph 2

there shall be added the words “and Council Regulation (EC) No. 3193/94 of 19th December 1994, OJ No. L337, 24.12.94, p.11”;

(b) in paragraph 9, for “C(94) 3490 of 21st December 1994” there shall be substituted “C(95) 719 of 29th March 1995”; and

(c) after paragraph 9 there shall be added the following paragraph—

“10.   Commission Decision No. C(95) 1797 of 27th July 1995 (as amended by Commission Decision C(95) 3184/4 of 14th December 1995) on the granting of assistance from the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF), Guidance Section, the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the European Social Fund (ESF) for an operational programme under the Community initiative LEADER II in the Objective 5(b) areas of England in the United Kingdom.”.

(1)

S.I. 1995/2202.