Part 4: Matters Relating to Farming and the Countryside Section 35: Red meat levy: payments between levy bodies in Great Britain
The livestock industry in Great Britain operates with complex livestock movements and animals may gain economic value in more than one part of the country. Producer levies are collected at slaughterhouses, regardless of where animals spend their lives or gain value. In each part of Great Britain, the relevant levy body collects red meat levy, under a common levy collection framework set out in the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006, the Red Meat Industry (Wales) Measure 2010, the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board Order 2008 and the Quality Meat Scotland Order 2008. "Red meat" in this context refers to meat from pigs, cattle and sheep for human consumption.
	An inequity in the red meat levy system was caused when significant amounts of producer levy collected at English slaughterhouses related to animals that spent all or some of their lives gaining value in Scotland and Wales. A red meat levy redistribution scheme would resolve this unfairness. The Agriculture Act enables the Secretary of State and ministers to set up a redistribution scheme allowing levy bodies to redistribute red meat levy among themselves, in some circumstances.
	Section 35 enables a scheme to be made for some of the red meat levy collected by a levy body in one country within Great Britain to be paid to another levy body in Great Britain. This would reflect the fact that some cattle, sheep or pigs produced in one country may be slaughtered in another country. Without the ability to make payments under a scheme the producer levy paid in respect of those animals in the country of slaughter can only be spent on activities which benefit red meat producers in that country.
	Subsection (1)(a) allows the establishment of a scheme so that agricultural levy boards in two or more countries in Great Britain can redistribute red meat levy between themselves.
	Subsection (1)(b) allows for a scheme to amend, suspend or revoke an earlier scheme, enabling an existing scheme to be updated.
	When the section refers to a payment, it means a payment that is made under the scheme by a levy body. Subsection (2) suggests some details that the scheme may include about the calculation method, who determines the amount of a payment within the levy body, for example, finance directors, or their delegates, as well as details about when and how the payment is made. It allows the scheme itself to specify its duration.
	Subsection (3) suggests that the scheme may give details about the method of calculating the payment amount and any matters relevant to that. This may include a number of relevant animals, such as those whose red meat levy has been collected by the levy body making the payment in a specific period. The animals that are relevant to the calculation may be required to have a ‘connection’ with country receiving the payment, for example, to have gained some economic value in that country.
	Subsection (4) requires that any payment made under the scheme is to be treated by the recipient levy body as if it were red meat levy collected by that body, for example in respect of the activities and purposes for which it can be spent.
	Subsection (5) allows the scheme to make further provisions beyond those in this section, including provisions that confer new functions on the levy boards if required to facilitate the implementation of the scheme.
	Subsection (6) imposes a new obligation on levy boards affected by such a scheme to comply with it.
	Subsection (7) provides that any such scheme will be made jointly by agreement between the Secretary of State, and the Scottish and Welsh Ministers. It cannot be brought into being without agreement. The scheme will be published.
	Subsection (8) names the red meat levy bodies for England and Scotland as the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) and Quality Meat Scotland (QMS), respectively. For Wales, the same subsection names the Red Meat Industry (Wales) Measure 2010, which provides Welsh Ministers with the power to levy its red meat industry. Welsh Ministers have currently delegated their functions to Hybu Cig Cymru (HCC).
	Subsection (9) defines the producer red meat levy in question by referring to the definitions in the relevant legislation that frames the activity of the levy body in each country.
	Overall, section 35 provides the Secretary of State, Scottish, and Welsh Ministers with the power to agree and publish a scheme to redistribute part of the producer red meat levy. Duties on levy boards under the scheme are freestanding, to sit alongside their duties under existing legislation. This section only affects the redistribution of levy; the collection of levy and the existing purposes and functions of levy boards remain subject to the existing legislation.