Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Deben and Lord Monks

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Deben]

First, I think I did say that I could not remember whether the decision to do the wages board came before or after I ceased to be the Agriculture Minister. I am being absolutely truthful about that. Secondly, I was never in favour of the Agricultural Wages Board, but I also remind the noble Lord that the decision to abolish these boards was taken as a whole. In those circumstances, I would have played a part, but, as a matter of fact, I do not think I did because the timing was rather different. I would just say to him that if I had had the opportunity, I would have done so. He might remember that I had a number of other things to deal with at the time, but we do not wish to go into that otherwise people will recall the photograph which was so widely used.

The issue I want to return to is this. I am not insulting the noble Lord. Of course he knows about agriculture because in a different guise he represented an agricultural constituency. I am merely saying that the language we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and those who spoke later, including even the upright defender of Cornwall, does not go down well with those in agricultural areas who want to be treated like everyone else: grown up and able to look after themselves. Their employment practices are decent and the relationships between employers and employees are particularly tight. The gangmaster regulations removed the only part of this which might have been argued, even though the agricultural workers regulations did not always cover the very people we wanted to help. I commend the previous Government for bringing that forward, and I am only sad to see that there is an innate conservatism in the trade union movement which makes it impossible for it to understand that the world has changed and with it we have to change our practices.

[Lord Monks]

My Lords, I respond, as a former general secretary of the TUC, to that last remark about the trade union movement. I cannot claim any rustic origins—I do not come from that part of the world—but I do claim some experience of rural life gleaned, at great expense, in various village pubs over the years, listening to what people say. While I accept that the degree of paternalism that often exists from the farmers’ and landowners’ side is often genuine and sincere, and we have heard some of that today, it is not the full story of rural life. It is not an idyll for everybody, some place where Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 wafts gently in the background and people are all very nice to each other. That is not the case. There are some dark sides and some problems which are not being faced up to on that side.

Over the years, I have not been a great fan of wages councils or the Agricultural Wages Board. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Plumb, that the National Farmers’ Union has plenty to do with the fact that it is very difficult to be proud of the Agricultural Wages Board because it is a very tough negotiator. It can always answer for itself. It is good at it. If anything is irrelevant, as the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, suggested, it is often because the employers have not wanted the board to address some of the problems that were brought to their attention. I take a rounded view which is certainly not old-fashioned. Some of the rates of pay that have been contracted for people driving a machine worth £250,000 or whatever do not seem excessive. When I look at the figures for farm incomes, I accept that there are good years and bad years, but they went up by 25% in 2011. I did not see a trickledown effect in the Agricultural Wages Board or any of the other agreements which were around. Farmers were, no doubt, thankful for a good year after some bad ones, but they were not exactly shelling out the money generously to their staff.

I ask the NFU and others, and I look forward to what the noble Lord says on these things, whether where there are shortages in the industry and a reliance on migrant workers it could be because the wages and conditions are still too low? Could it be because it is not an attractive place for young people to go to work and the prospects for replacing the ageing workforce are not fantastically good? I look forward to what the Minister will say on these things. This debate is about pay and conditions in agriculture as well as about the wages board. The wages board, like the wages councils, was in the words of Winston Churchill, a floor beneath wages. They are not a restriction which stops you from paying more. They are simply a floor, and if you do not go below it, you are clean. However, there are plenty of people who do go below it. I could quote examples, particularly from the horticultural industry, where some quite substantial employers went below the wages council order and were in difficulty when they were caught.

I ask the Government to follow the wise advice that has been given by my noble friend Lord Whitty and take a longer, deeper look at this. I am not against change, reforming, making the thing more relevant and all the rest of it, but this industry has different features. There may be some other industries around that you can compare it with, but they are not on our agenda today. Rural life, close relationships, living cheek-by-jowl—not always, but often—make this a rather special place, and that justifies the continuation of the Agricultural Wages Board.

Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Deben and Lord Monks

Wednesday 5th December 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Monks]

I shall not detain the Committee for very long. I was disappointed to hear the noble Lord, Lord Deben, make the points in the way that he did. Not only is this not a new debate; it is an old debate. It was debated in this Parliament in Victorian times in relation to intolerable factory conditions. It is a debate about sending children up chimneys. Noble Lords can wince at that but the debate is an old one. I recognise it and have heard it in many employer circles. I recall that over the 10 years from 1997 to 2007—I am not making a party-political point here—we added a million jobs in this country. The employment market boomed. As noble Lords will know, a large number of those jobs went to migrant staff—although that is another issue for another day—but the fact is that there was an incredible expansion of jobs at that time.

[Lord Deben]

The noble Lord must remember that almost every one of those jobs was created by the Government and paid for by the taxpayer, and that has been a significant burden for Britain. We are now creating proper jobs which make money for the nation. It is a wholly different situation. I can create a million jobs if I pay for them out of taxpayers’ money. That really is not an argument that can be put forward.

[Lord Monks]

That is not a constructive suggestion. Many of those million jobs were in the private sector. Unfortunately, far too many of them were in the south-east of England and not in the poorer regions. I accept that the noble Lord has a point in that the public sector was the major driver of the economy and of the regeneration of our cities in the north of England and in Scotland and south Wales. A large number of jobs were created. There have been some exaggerated claims about the possible effects of the national minimum wage and so on but that is probably another debate for another day and well beyond the scope of this clause. However, in the OECD league tables, the British labour market is ranked number three for flexibility. This country is the third easiest when it comes to employers being able to sack people. I wish that employers would stop moaning about this, look at some of the evidence from abroad and get on with seeking to help to increase employment by looking at what they can do themselves and at the changes that the Government can make, possibly in relation to national insurance and so on. That would boost employment opportunities far more than giving a licence to some employers—I think that they are a minority but they are not very good employers—who would take advantage of these kinds of provisions.