Summary and Background Part 1: Marine Management Organisation Transfer schemes etc Section 39: Transfer schemes
126.This section enables the Secretary of State to make schemes to transfer to the MMO property, rights and liabilities of Defra (including those of the Marine and Fisheries Agency), other Government Departments, Ministers and statutory bodies.
127.This section also allows the transfer of any property, rights and liabilities from the MMO to Ministers, Government Departments and statutory bodies.
128.This section allows transfers to take place when the MMO is established and when functions are transferred to it. The Secretary of State may also make schemes on other occasions to transfer property, rights or liabilities to and from the Secretary of State and the MMO: it might, for example, be necessary in the future for the MMO to hold property in its own right, and a transfer scheme would be needed to transfer this property between bodies.
129.The MMO will be undertaking new functions created by the Act but is also taking over existing functions currently discharged by the Marine and Fisheries Agency, Defra, the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Department for Transport. This section enables resources (including staff) currently being deployed to discharge these functions to be transferred to the MMO.
130.Reference is made to Schedule 3 where further provisions relating to transfer schemes are set out.