Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Plumb and Lord Howarth of Newport

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Plumb]

I am inclined to agree that the figure is not accurate. I was quoting from the NFU. I am not the NFU. I was, but I am not now. I think the figure is considerably higher than that. If the noble Lord wants to quote that figure, I am very happy for him to quote it. I was merely quoting the cost of running the outfit, not the whole cost of the operation, including the buildings and everything else. If he wants to do that, I ask him please to produce that figure. I shall be delighted to receive it.

One notes that Unite, which represents farm workers on the board, is today campaigning against its abolition, which one understands, and argues that the plans will put thousands of rural and agriculture workers’ pay and conditions in jeopardy. I do not accept that. I know from experience what is being paid at the moment. You can forget your wages board and your minimum wage. If you are going to employ on your farm today someone who is going to sit on a machine that has probably cost £250,000, you are not going to pay them peanuts to try to get them into employment; you are going to pay them a good living wage. I am a great believer in giving these young people an opportunity to get into a share-farming operation. More and more people are inclined to that sort of determination as we look towards the future.

Rather than foster good labour relations, I believe that the present system is a source of friction and could certainly be done away with. The normal pattern is for the employers and the employees to take turns each year in being disgruntled. The board and the councils were established each year, and we had the Wages Council Act 1947. At their height, there were 100 throughout the country. They were progressively abolished, as we well know and have already heard, particularly between 1979 and 1997, leaving the Agricultural Wages Board as the only remaining example. If they were so vital, why did the previous Labour Government not restore them? Why did they not bring them back saying, “Other workers are going to be damaged”, as they propose farm workers are going to be damaged? They have not been, and we have not got wages boards there. We got rid of them, so why not do the same with agriculture?

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, I always listen to the noble Lord, Lord Plumb, on matters of agriculture and, indeed, on other matters with the greatest respect, as do all noble Lords, but the fact is that my noble friend Lord Whitty has made some very powerful points indeed about what the impact of this policy is all too likely to be on agricultural workers.

I want to make only two brief points; they are both about process. The Government have tabled this amendment in order to remove a provision from the Public Bodies Act. The effect of tabling this amendment to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill is to undo what Parliament quite recently legislated in the Public Bodies Act. Only two days ago, the Opposition tabled an amendment to the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill and the House approved it. It had the effect of altering a provision in the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act, and there was the most almighty hullaballoo and complaint from the Government—the Conservative Party, certainly—in the House. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, waxed eloquent in saying:

“Where does it put this House in the eyes of the people should the Committee choose to pass the amendment? We will not be seen, as we would choose to be seen, as the guardians of constitutional propriety”.—[Official Report, 14/1/13; col. 520.]

He said that the amendment would damage, “the delicate constitutional underpinning” of the relationship between the two Houses. He also said that,

“there are great dangers in that”.—[Official Report, 14/1/13; col. 522.]

I can only conclude that all that complaint about the constitutional impropriety of what the Opposition were doing was humbug.

I make no further comment on that, but I want to make a comment on the process that the Government have adopted in introducing the measure as they are now doing. I am told that they allowed only one week for consultation in Wales. I had the privilege of representing a Welsh constituency in the House of Commons and among my constituents were a number of agricultural workers. Any Member of Parliament representing a Welsh constituency is very well aware of the fragility and vulnerability of employment in the agricultural sector in Wales, which deals with very difficult conditions of all kinds. What is at stake in the policy represented in the amendment which the Government tabled is the incomes of agricultural workers. As my noble friend Lord Whitty said, they are poorly paid and in fragile employment. It is simply wrong to consult for no more than a week on a matter of such grave importance to those who would be affected by it. It is wrong and inhumane, and the Committee must deprecate in the strongest possible terms the way in which the Government have proceeded on this.