Statutory Instruments
2013 No. 3171

Environmental Protection
Road Traffic
The Agricultural or Forestry Tractors (Emission of Gaseous and Particulate Pollutants) and Tractor etc (EC Type-Approval) (Amendment) Regulations 2013

Made
12th December 2013

Laid before Parliament
19th December 2013

Coming into force
28th January 2014

The Secretary of State for Transport makes the following Regulations in exercise of the powers conferred by section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972(1) (“the 1972 Act”).

The Secretary of State is designated for the purposes of section 2(2) of the 1972 Act in relation to the environment(2) and for the regulation of the type, description, construction or equipment of vehicles, and of components of vehicles, and in particular any vehicle type-approval scheme(3).

Citation and commencement

1.  These Regulations may be cited as the Agricultural or Forestry Tractors (Emission of Gaseous and Particulate Pollutants) and Tractor etc (EC Type-Approval) (Amendment) Regulations 2013 and come into force on 28th January 2014.

Amendment of the Agricultural or Forestry Tractors (Emission of Gaseous and Particulate Pollutants) Regulations 2002

2.  The Agricultural or Forestry Tractors (Emission of Gaseous and Particulate Pollutants) Regulations 2002(4) (“the 2002 Regulations”) are amended as follows.

Interpretation

3.  In regulation 2—

(1) For the definition of “Council Directive 97/68/EC” substitute—

““Council Directive 97/68/EC” means Directive 97/68/EC(5) of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16th December 1997 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to measures against the emission of gaseous and particulate pollutants from internal combustion engines to be installed in non-road mobile machinery, as amended by such EU instruments as are in force on the day the Agricultural or Forestry Tractors (Emission of Gaseous and Particulate Pollutants) and Tractor etc (EC Type-Approval) (Amendment) Regulations 2013 are made;”.

(2) For the definition of “Council Directive 2000/25/EC” substitute—

““Council Directive 2000/25/EC” means Directive 2000/25/EC(6) of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22nd May 2000 on action to be taken against the emission of gaseous and particulate pollutants by engines intended to power agricultural or forestry tractors and amending Council Directive 74/150/EEC, as amended by such EU instruments as are in force on the day the Agricultural or Forestry Tractors (Emission of Gaseous and Particulate Pollutants) and Tractor etc (EC Type-Approval) (Amendment) Regulations 2013 are made;”.

(3) For the definition of “Council Directive 2003/37/EC” substitute—

““Council Directive 2003/37/EC” means Directive 2003/37/EC(7) of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26th May 2003 on type-approval of agricultural or forestry tractors, their trailers and interchangeable towed machinery, together with their systems, components and separate technical units and repealing Directive 74/150/EEC, as amended by such EU instruments as are in force on the day the Agricultural or Forestry Tractors (Emission of Gaseous and Particulate Pollutants) and Tractor etc (EC Type-Approval) (Amendment) Regulations 2013 are made;”.

(4) After the definition of “engine power output” insert—

““entry into service” means the first use in the United Kingdom or another member State, for its intended purpose, of a tractor or engine and the date on which it is registered, if applicable, or placed on the market, shall be considered the date of entry into service, where “registered” means, in relation to a tractor that is registered in the United Kingdom, registered in accordance with Part II of the Vehicle Excise and Registration Act 1994(8);”.

(5) In the definition of “flexibility scheme”, for paragraph (a), substitute—

“(a)a scheme, in accordance with Article 3a and Annex IV of Council Directive 2000/25/EC, for the placing on the market of tractor engines or tractors which has been approved by the UK type approval authority under the provisions of Schedule 3 and which consists of the exemption procedure permitting the placing on the market and entry into service of a limited number of such engines, or tractors fitted with engines, approved in accordance with the requirements of the emission limits stage immediately preceding the one which would otherwise be applicable, or”.

(6) In the definition of “stage”, at the end add “and a stage is numbered, as the case may be, I to IV, as set out in Article 9(4) and (4a) of Council Directive 97/68/EC”.

(7) At the end of the definition of “tractor engine”, add “and “engine” is to be construed accordingly”.

Amendment of regulation 4 of the 2002 Regulations

4.  In regulation 4 (prohibition on entering engines or tractors into service), for paragraph (3) substitute—

“(3) No person shall enter into service for the first time on or after the relevant date any agricultural or forestry tractor fitted with a relevant engine unless either—

(a)the engine complies with the limit values for the category to which it would have belonged if it had been manufactured and entered into service on the day the tractor was entered into service for the first time; or

(b)the conditions in paragraph (3A) apply.

(3A) the conditions are that the engine—

(a)is of category L, M, N, P, Q or R;

(b)is fitted into an agricultural or forestry tractor of category T2, T4.1 or C2, as defined respectively in—

(i)the second indent of point A.1 of Chapter A,

(ii)point 1.1 of Part I of Appendix 1 to Chapter B, and

(iii)point A.2 of Chapter A,

of Annex II to Council Directive 2003/37/EC; and

(c)complies, on initial entry into service, with the limit values of stage IIIA until, as the case may be, the end of—

(i)31st December 2013 in relation to engines of category L,

(ii)30th September 2014 in relation to engines of category M or N,

(iii)31st December 2015 in relation to engines of category P,

(iv)31st December 2016 in relation to engines of category Q, or

(v)30th September 2017 in relation to engines of category R.

(3B) Where the conditions in paragraph (3A) apply, the dates shown in column 2 and 3 of the second entry in each case in relation to a category of engine mentioned in paragraph (3A)(a) and listed in column 4 of Table 1 in Schedule 1, must be read as if modified in accordance with paragraph (3A)(c) by—

(a)in the case of an engine of category L, M or R, substituting for the second date shown in each column the date mentioned in that paragraph for that category of engine, or

(b)in the case of an engine of category P, Q or R, for the word “onwards” substituting “to” followed by the date mentioned in that paragraph for that category of engine.”

Review

5.  After regulation 6, add—

“Duty to review Regulations

7.—(1) The Secretary of State shall from time to time—

(a)carry out a review of these Regulations;

(b)set out the conclusions of the review in a report, and

(c)publish the report.

(2) In carrying out the review the Secretary of State shall, so far as is reasonable, have regard to how Council Directive 2000/25/EC (which is implemented in the United Kingdom by these Regulations) is implemented in other member States.

(3) The report shall in particular—

(a)set out the objectives intended to be achieved by the regulatory system established by these Regulations;

(b)assess the extent to which those objectives are achieved; and

(c)assess whether those objectives remain appropriate and, if so, the extent to which they could be achieved with a system that imposes less regulation.

(4) The first report under this regulation shall be published before the end of the period of five years beginning with the day on which the Agricultural or Forestry Tractors (Emission of Gaseous and Particulate Pollutants) and Tractor etc (EC Type-Approval) (Amendment) Regulations 2013 come into force.

(5) Reports under these Regulations are afterwards to be published at intervals not exceeding five years.”.

Amendment of Schedule 1 to the 2002 Regulations

6.  In Schedule 1, for Table 1 (categories of engine and relevant dates), substitute the following table—

“Table 1

Categories of Engine, Relevant Dates and Stages

(1)

Power Output (P) in kW

(2)

Production date

(3)

Date of initial entry into service

(4)

Category

(5)

Stage

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