(1)The Secretary of State shall by regulations (to be known as registration regulations) make provision for and in connection with the registration of ships as British ships.
(2)Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1) above, registration regulations may, in particular, make provision with respect to any of the following matters—
(a)the persons by whom and the manner in which applications in connection with registration are to be made;
(b)the information and evidence (including declarations of British connection) to be provided in connection with such applications and such supplementary information or evidence as may be required by any specified authority;
(c)the shares in the property in, and the numbers of owners (including joint owners) of, a ship permitted for the purposes of registration and the persons required or permitted to be registered in respect of a ship or to be so registered in specified circumstances;
(d)the issue of certificates (including provisional certificates) of registration, their production and surrender;
(e)restricting and regulating the names of ships registered or to be registered;
(f)the marking of ships registered or to be registered, including marks for identifying the port to which a ship is to be treated as belonging;
(g)the period for which registration is to remain effective without renewal;
(h)the production to the registrar of declarations of British connection or other information relating thereto, as respects registered ships, at specified intervals or at his request;
(i)the survey and inspection of ships registered or to be registered and the recording of their tonnage as ascertained (or re-ascertained) under the tonnage regulations;
(j)the refusal, suspension and termination of registration in specified circumstances;
(k)matters arising out of the expiration, suspension or termination of registration (including the removal of marks and the cancellation of certificates);
(l)the charging of fees in connection with registration or registered ships;
(m)the transfer of the registration of ships to and from the register from and to registers or corresponding records in countries other than the United Kingdom;
(n)inspection of the register;
(o)any other matter which is authorised or required by this Part to be prescribed in registration regulations;
but no provision determining, or providing for determining, the fees to be charged or prescribing any arrangements for their determination by other persons shall be made without the approval of the Treasury.
(3)Registration regulations may—
(a)make different provision for different classes or descriptions of ships and for different circumstances;
(b)without prejudice to paragraph (a) above, make provision for the granting of exemptions or dispensations by the Secretary of State from specified requirements of the regulations, subject to such conditions (if any) as he thinks fit to impose; and
(c)make such transitional, incidental or supplementary provision as appears to the Secretary of State to be necessary or expedient, including provision authorising investigations and conferring powers of inspection for verifying the British connection of a ship.
(4)Registration regulations—
(a)may make provision for the registration of any class or description of ships to be such as to exclude the application of the private law provisions for registered ships and, if they do, may regulate the transfer, transmission or mortgaging of ships of the class or description so excluded;
(b)may make provision for any matter which is authorised or required by those provisions to be prescribed by registration regulations; and
(c)shall make provision precluding notice of any trust being entered in the register or being receivable by the registrar except as respects specified classes or descriptions of ships or in specified circumstances.
(5)Registration regulations may create offences subject to the limitation that no offence shall be punishable with imprisonment or punishable on summary conviction with a fine exceeding level 5 on the standard scale.
(6)Registration regulations may provide for—
(a)the approval of forms by the Secretary of State; and
(b)the discharge of specified functions by specified authorities or persons.
(7)Registration regulations may provide for any of their provisions to extend to places outside the United Kingdom.
(8)Any document purporting to be a copy of any information contained in an entry in the register and to be certified as a true copy by the registrar shall be evidence (and, in Scotland, sufficient evidence) of the matters stated in the document.
(9)Registration regulations may provide that any reference in any other Act or in any instrument made under any other Act to the port of registry or the port to which a ship belongs shall be construed as a reference to the port identified by the marks required for the purpose by registration regulations.
Modifications etc. (not altering text)
C1S. 10 applied (31.3.2023) by The Merchant Shipping (Watercraft) Order 2023 (S.I. 2023/35), arts. 1(1), 4
C2S. 10(2)(f) amended (1.7.1999) by S.I. 1999/1750, arts. 1(1), 4, Sch. 3; S.I. 1998/3178, art. 3
S. 10(2)(f) modified (1.7.1999) by S.I. 1999/1756, arts. 1(1), 2, Sch. para. 17;S.I. 1998/3178, art. 3