Section 13 – Order under section 2 of the 1937 Act: additional powers
31.Section 13 inserts section 2ZA into the 1937 Act. Section 2 (Power to designate areas) of the 1937 Act enables Ministers, where they have reasonable grounds for suspecting that certain waters are or may become “infected waters” (as that term is defined in section 10 (Interpretation) of the 1937 Act) to make an order designating those waters and such adjacent land as Ministers consider appropriate. Such an area is known in section 2 of the 1937 Act as a “designated area”. Under section 2 of the 1937 Act, in respect of a designated area Ministers may prohibit or regulate the taking into or out of the designated area of live fish and live fish eggs and foodstuff of fish and regulate movement of those things within the designated area. New section 2ZA provides additional powers where Ministers designate an area under section 2 of the 1937 Act where they suspect that the waters are or may become infected waters by reason of the presence of the parasite Gyrodactylus salaris.
32.These additional powers include prohibiting the taking into or out of the designated area by any person, other than an inspector or other person exercising functions by arrangement with the Scottish Ministers in relation to the 1937 Act, of any vehicle, or description of vehicle, and such equipment, material or substance not falling within section 2(2)(a) of the 1937 Act (i.e. live fish, live eggs of fish and foodstuff of fish) as may be specified in the order designating the area, unless the vehicle, equipment, material or substance concerned is subjected to a specified process of disinfection immediately before being taken in to or, as the case me be, out of the designated area (new section 2ZA(a)). These additional powers also include prohibiting or regulating the taking into or out of the designated area of dead fish (section 2ZA(b)) and regulating entry to and exit from the designated area (section 2ZA(c)).