Agriculture Act 1970

6 Functions of Authority as to quality control

(1) The Authority may prepare and submit to the Ministers schemes with respect to the quality testing or weight grading of eggs for sale by wholesale, and any such scheme may in particular—

(a) specify the class or classes of persons to whom the requirements of the scheme are to apply;

(b) provide for the registration of such persons with the Authority;

(c) specify quality standards or weight grades and assign designations to those standards or grades;

(d) provide for eggs for sale otherwise than by retail or any containers in which eggs are packed for such sale to be marked with the appropriate quality or weight designation, with or without an indication of the date on which the eggs were packed after being tested or graded;

(e) vary or revoke any scheme previously brought into force under this subsection ;

(f) contain such supplemental, incidental or transitional provisions as appear to the Authority to be expedient, including in particular provision—

(i) conferring exemptions from requirements of the scheme;

(ii) for persons contravening or failing to comply with requirements of the scheme to be guilty of an offence against the scheme ;

(iii) as to the circumstances in which warranty or other matters are to be a defence for a person charged with such an offence ;

(iv) for a person guilty of such an offence to be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding a specified amount, being an amount not exceeding £100 or, in the case of a second or subsequent offence, £200;

(v) conferring powers of entry for the purposes of the scheme on authorised officers;

and if the Ministers are satisfied that it is desirable that any such scheme submitted to them should be brought into force, they may bring it into force by order.

(2) The Ministers may by order revoke any scheme brought into force under subsection (1) of this section if it appears to them, after consultation with the Authority, that the scheme is not serving the purposes for which it was made or that the continued operation of the scheme would be contrary to the public interest; and any such order may contain such supplemental, incidental or transitional provisions as appear to the Ministers to be expedient.

(3) Any order under subsection (1) or (2) of this section may revoke any order previously made under the said subsection (1).

(4) In section 2(4) of the [1968 c. 29.] Trade Descriptions Act 1968 (which provides that certain descriptions or marks shall be deemed not to be trade descriptions for the purposes of that Act), the word " and " in the last place where it occurs shall be omitted and at the end there shall be added the words " and any designation, mark or description applied in pursuance of a scheme brought into force under section 6(1) or an order made under section 25(1) of the Agriculture Act 1970 ".