Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill
Debate between Baroness Byford and Lord Knight of Weymouth(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Knight of Weymouth
I am afraid that I disagree with the noble Lord about the unique nature of agriculture. It is right that we have agricultural colleges giving specific training, specifically feeding an industry with the skills that are needed. People need to have that training and understanding of the unique way of life, in terms of working very anti-social hours at times and having to be highly flexible in the way that they work. Some 30% of farm workers have a boss who is also their landlord. There are a number of unique things about agriculture—he disagrees and I respect his disagreement—that I do not know of in other sectors.
Baroness Byford
I apologise—too many years in opposition. I take the noble Lord up on the agricultural colleges and universities—because two of them have become universities recently. I do not think that that has anything to do with what my noble friend was saying. The agricultural colleges are hugely important. They have an important role in encouraging young people to come into the farming industry. But it is a very different industry from what has been described by several colleagues on the other side.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
I mentioned agricultural colleges because I am not aware of another sector that has a specific network of colleges for its training. There is something different and unique about agriculture, which is very important. There may be others that other noble Lords want to mention. Maybe if I racked my brains I could come up with them, but I think there is something unique about agriculture.
Other benefits are attached to the Agricultural Wages Board. For example, there is the entitlement to rest breaks, overtime, paid holidays and even the allowance of £7.63 per week for working dogs. There is an on-call and night allowance. All these things are negotiated. They are all part of the reason why agriculture can be regarded as a special case.
Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill [HL]
Debate between Baroness Byford and Lord Knight of Weymouth
Baroness Byford
Yes, but perhaps my noble friend was in a better position than that supplier; there was clearly a problem there.
I welcome the amendment and am glad that we have a chance to debate it. I hope that when we come to later amendments concerning fines, we will be able to strengthen the provisions. I do not know whether that will make this amendment unnecessary—I seek clarification on that, because I do not know the Minister’s point of view. If we fail later to strengthen the whole section on fines, the amendment will be extremely important.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, I will not add to the excellent case made by my noble friend Lord Browne, but he has my support.
Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill [HL]
Debate between Baroness Byford and Lord Knight of Weymouth(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Byford
My Lords, we have moved on to looking at investigations. My amendment seeks to amend Schedule 2(6). The Explanatory Notes refer in line 3 on page 11 to the adjudicator considering information supplied by whistleblowers. The rule in the Bill that allows the payment of expenses only to someone who has to undertake a journey of “more than 10 miles” could exclude—I do not say that it will do so—people who live in the countryside. As we know, if they do not have a car, public transport can be quite a problem. Does the choice of a distance of 10 miles follow what has been provided for in previous legislation or does it relate only to this Bill? A distance of 10 miles in urban areas with plenty of transport options is one matter, but in rural areas where buses sometimes run only three times a week, it is another. Is it necessary to restrict this provision to that distance? It could well be that someone has to make a six-mile journey and cannot manage it easily. As the Bill stands, they would not be entitled to any financial help to get to the adjudicator and give their evidence.
Earlier today, we had a meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Rural Services. One of the things we talked about was the provision of rural bus and rail services. I have to say that it is an increasingly difficult problem. For those who own cars, it is not something that needs to be thought about, but for those who do not own cars, it is. If someone happened to be a whistleblower, which is what we are talking about here, and had lost their job, they might find themselves in difficulties. I have therefore tabled the amendment to seek clarification. I beg to move.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, I am interested in the noble Baroness’s amendment. I shall not comment on it at length, but I understand the problem she raises here. I want only to ask the Minister whether, under paragraph 16 of Schedule 1, which we discussed earlier in respect of incidental powers, it would be better to offer the adjudicator some flexibility under this wonderful paragraph and thus allow him to use his judgment on what would be a reasonable level of travel expenses.
Baroness Wilcox
My Lords, I can understand why my noble friend is asking this question because she lives in the countryside. I live in Cornwall and I know about buses in rural areas, and can understand the principle behind the amendment. From a practical point of view, a simple distance criterion will be much easier for the adjudicator to apply than one based on the time taken to use public transport. It says here that it is more straightforward and harder to dispute to decide whether someone has travelled more than 10 miles than to calculate whether it would have been possible to make that journey within half an hour on public transport.
However, my instinct is similar to that of the noble Lord, Lord Knight, and I feel that somehow or other the adjudicator should at least be able to have some thoughts on this matter. Although I shall ask my noble friend to withdraw the amendment, I can say that we will go back and look at this issue to see what the answer may be. I do not know whether there can be some discretion, and I may be treading on all sorts of impossible ground, but when we discussed this matter previously, and my team asked why we should consider this, I said, “I think you will find that this is a rural question”. There is obviously sympathy in the Committee for my noble friend’s question. I therefore ask her to withdraw her amendment. However, I will take it away and see if there is anything else that we can come back with.