For the purpose of increasing revenue available to meet the expenses of drainage works a river board may raise, and levy on the occupiers of chargeable hereditaments in the river board area, a charge to be known as a general drainage charge.

For the purposes of this Part of this Act the chargeable hereditaments in any river board area shall be the agricultural land and agricultural buildings in so much of the area as does not fall within an internal drainage district.

Every general drainage charge shall be at a uniform amount per pound on the annual value of each chargeable hereditament within the river board area, and that amount shall be an amount ascertained in accordance with regulations made under section two of this Act.

The Minister shall make regulations for ascertaining the amount per pound of annual value at which a river board may raise a general drainage charge for any year.

The regulations shall define that amount by stating the proportion which it is to bear to the river board's precept rate for that year, and in determining that proportion the Minister shall secure that the amount of the drainage charge will be such as appears to him to be as nearly as practicable equivalent to that precept rate, but may, so far as necessary to avoid small fractions of a penny, make different provisions for different precept rates.

For the purposes of subsection (2) of this section, the precept rate of a river board for any year shall be taken to be the amount per pound (of rateable value) at which a rate levied for that year on so much of the areas of county boroughs and county districts wholly or partly within the river board area as is within that area would have produced the amount for which precepts are issued in that year by the river board under section ten of the River Boards Act, 1948.

Regulations under this section shall be made by statutory instrument, which shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of the Commons House of Parliament.