Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Lord Deben and Baroness Turner of Camden

Monday 22nd April 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben]

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, puts me in the most difficult of positions. I have spent my whole life congratulating myself on being the only politician from Cambridge of my time who was not a lawyer, and therefore complimenting lawyers, or suggesting the need for legal advice, goes against the grain in a big way—but I have to say that he is right. However, that is not the only thing. The issue is how we make this a creative contribution to the development of small businesses rather than something that has become an argument not about that at all but about giving up employment rights, the need for legal advice and all those things. We did not start from the basis that we ought to have, which is what puts me into this huge position. I apologise therefore for not being enormously supportive. I still have to listen very carefully to decide quite how unsupportive I am going to be, but I say to my noble friend that I wish we could have turned this good idea into a good idea instead of turning this good idea into what seems to me to be largely not an idea at all.

[Baroness Turner of Camden]

My Lords, there are already in existence what I suppose you could call partnership schemes, where people can of course have shares and a partnership with a company without the necessity for the abandonment of employment rights. As this legislation stands at the moment, one cannot help feeling that this is a way in which the Government want to get rid of employment rights without appearing to do so by introducing a scheme under which the employee can be persuaded to voluntarily give up an employment right where they normally would not consider doing so because that would not be required.

I do not think that we can judge this on the basis that “We ought to have a scheme where people do participate”. Schemes like that are available. What is difficult about this is that the basis seems to be the abandonment of employment rights before the employee can get involved in any sort of share or partnership scheme. I think that that is what we object to very strongly; I, at least, have done so from the very beginning. It has always seemed to me that the Government themselves are not keen on employment rights. This is a way of getting rid of those rights without appearing to do so, simply by offering an employee something that really does not compensate for the loss of the very important employment rights that we have been discussing today. It is that sort of basis which is why I oppose this clause and why I fully support what the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has said with great clarity. This is the situation that I take now, and I hope that the Government will be disposed to accept what we have said on this side of the House—indeed, on every side of the House—which is: do not proceed with this scheme. Not only will it not work, but it is not right and it does no good at all to employment and employment rights.

Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Lord Deben and Baroness Turner of Camden

Wednesday 6th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Turner of Camden]

Old fashioned?

[Lord Deben]

The noble Baroness, Lady Turner, speaks from her seat, but she has put forward some opinions that I have not heard since 1945. I am not on that side but I still do not see this. I hope that the Government will help those of us who are naturally on their side to get out of this miasma—this difficulty of understanding the connection of the two halves. I have great sympathy with the question asked earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock. What is the connection and how will it improve things, one by one? I am very ready to be converted but at the moment I am finding it rather difficult.

Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Deben and Baroness Turner of Camden

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Deben]

First, I do not remember whether I was still there or not because it was the year in which I moved. Secondly, I have always been opposed to the Agricultural Wages Board and have always said so because it has never seemed to apply to the industry that I know. It may have applied in 1930. It may have applied in the long-distant past in 1830, although we did not have the board in those days. This is what worries me about the speeches from the other side. I do not feel that they understand how agriculture works.

The former Member for Newport talks about agricultural workers in Newport. I must say that my mother was brought up there and there must be a pretty exiguous collection of people in Newport. However I say this: those of us who live in agricultural areas, care about agriculture and have spent a lifetime dealing with it have to say that the speeches from the other side have no connection with reality at all.

[Baroness Turner of Camden]

Is the noble Lord not aware that other employers in the industry feel very differently and find the Agricultural Wages Board useful and helpful? I was speaking to one such, a noble Lord, on precisely that point today. I do not know very much about agriculture, but I know quite a bit about employment rights, and I happened to mention this matter to a friend—not a noble friend but a friend—who is involved in agriculture in a large way. He told me that he respected the Agricultural Wages Board. He had always found it useful and was surprised that the Government were moving in the direction of abolition. It was clear that there had not been overall consultation. This is apparent from a number of the contributions today; there has been no real, deep consultation on the amendment.

[Lord Deben]

I am sure that the noble Baroness would agree from her long history of trade union negotiations that you can always find someone who takes a differing view. However, I have to tell her that if one talks to farmers throughout the country and to large numbers of farm workers their view is simple: this board has been an irrelevance for a very long time. Many of them feel it to be an insult to suggest that this portion of humanity, this group of people, should be singled out and defended on the basis that they cannot be trusted to run their businesses or to negotiate in the way that everyone else in Britain does.

I particularly objected, if I may say so, to the comments of the noble Lord who suggested that it would be much easier to keep the wages board because it is too complicated for farmers and farm workers to negotiate. My goodness, what a miserable society it is in which we have to have things done on a collective basis because individuals who work with, talk to and care about each other are unable, too stupid or do not have the time to work out the relationships between them, both financial and in terms of employment. It is a harking-back occasion. This Committee often reminds me of discussions—