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Lords Amendment No. 124: In page 99, line 24, after the Amendment last inserted, insert new Clause "L":
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L.—(1) For the purposes of section 44 of the Customs and Excise Act 1952 (forfeiture of goods improperly imported) any imported goods shall be deemed to be imported contrary to a restriction for the time being in force with respect to them under this Act if—
(2) For the purposes of section 56 of the Customs and Excise Act 1952 (offences in relation to exportation of prohibited or restricted goods) any goods shall be deemed to be exported contrary to a restriction for the time being in force with respect to them under this Act if—
(3) Any class of goods specified in an order under subsection (I) or subsection (2) of this section shall be so specified as to consist exclusively of goods appearing to the Ministers to be goods which are, or normally are, medicinal products or are, or normally are, animal feeding stuffs in which medicinal products have been incorporated.
§ Mr. SnowI beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
The purpose of the Clause is to deal with three problems which arise in connection with enforcement at the port of import and export provisions in the Bill. The first of these is that under the Customs and Excise Act the customs officers' power of seizure can be exercised only when the goods in question are prohibited or restricted imports or exports, as the case may be. In many places in the Bill, however, the prohibition is against a person who imports or exports. Apart from the technical problem of applying the Customs and Excise Act to such places particular difficulty arises where goods arrive at the port and no one can be immediately identified as the person importing or exporting them.
The second problem arises from the nature of the definition of "medicinal product" which we have included in the Bill. This is not related directly to the nature or characteristics of the substance but depends on the purpose for which a preparation has been wholly or mainly manufactured or marketed. Such a definitions raises practical difficulties for 821 customs officers, and we think that enforcement at the port will be more effective if directed to a limited range of medicinal products and medicated animal feeding stuffs where it is of particular importance, rather than dissipated over the whole field.
This raises the third problem, namely, that it is not satisfactory for a public authority with a general enforcement duty to exercise this selectively in the light of purely administrative choice. From this it follows that if we are to ask the Board of Customs and Excise to enforce import and export provisions in the Bill selectively a statutory foundation for such selectivity is necessary. The new Clause accordingly provides for an order to be made specifying goods in respect of the export or import of which Customs are to have a duty of enforcement, and makes it clear that such goods when imported or exported in specified circumstances are to be in the category of prohibited exports or imports and therefore subject to Customs powers as to forfeiture.
The products which will be included in the orders will be those which give rise to special danger, such as "therapeutic substances" and products like veterinary antibiotics which present the greatest temptations to evasion of the prohibitions.
| 5 | "M.—(1) For the purposes of the application of the provisions of sections 104, (Application of sampling procedure to substance or article seized under s. 104) and (Analysis of samples in other cases) of this Act in relation to animal feeding stuffs, regulations made by the Agriculture Ministers may provide that any of those provisions specified in the regulations shall have effect subject to such modifications as may be so specified. |
| (2) Regulations made by the Agriculture Ministers— | |
| 10 | (a) may make provision as to the manner in which samples may be taken by virtue of the provisions of section 104 of this Act as modified by any regulations made under the preceding subsection, as to the manner in which samples may be set aside or substances or articles may be treated as samples, by virtue of the provisions of section (Application of sampling procedure to substance or article seized under s. 104) of this Act as so modified, or as to the manner in which samples may be submitted for analysis by virtue of the provisions of section (Analysis of samples in other cases) of this Act as so modified, and |
| 15 | |
| 20 | |
| 25 | (b) in relation to samples so taken, set aside or submitted for analysis, or substances or articles so treated as samples, may make provision (either in substitution for, or by way of modification of or addition to, any of the provisions of Schedule 3 to this Act) as to the manner in which such samples, substances and articles are to be dealt with. |
| 30 | (3) In relation to the incorporation in animal feeding stuffs of substances or articles of any description or class specified in an order made under this subsection by the Agriculture Ministers, |
§ The existing general prohibitions in the Bill on export and import will, of course, remain and will be enforceable by the Ministers, either directly or, in the case of imports, through the possession offences provided for already in Clauses 39 and 60.
§ These arrangements in no way affect the requirement under Clause 7, that, before an imported product can be marketed in this country, a product licence must be obtained. This requirement is additional to the product licence requirement in respect of importing itself, although the same licence would generally serve for both purposes and would be in force in the same way as the similar provisions applicable to the marketing of products produced in this country. Amendment No. 137 is merely consequential, making Orders under the new Clause subject to annulment procedure.
§ Question put and agreed to.