Public Bodies Bill [Lords]

Andrew George Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

I justify it on the basis that the Government of the hon. Lady’s party introduced a minimum wage, which was voted through by the House. The Agricultural Wages Board was introduced at a time when there was no national minimum wage. It now exists, and we take the view that an independent body with the AWB’s powers no longer needs to exist.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

The point about the Agricultural Wages Board is not just that it pins down a minimum wage for agricultural workers but that there are six scales of pay and other protections for those workers, who have a very weak voice in the labour market. The Minister talks about transparency, but the rural voice will be lost unless transparent decisions are made in the Chamber about each of the bodies involved, including the Rural Advocate, who speaks up on behalf of the most vulnerable in rural communities.

[Mr Maude]

On the hon. Gentleman’s point about the Rural Advocate, it seems to me that rural areas are very well represented in this House. It seems odd that a separate body should be created to be a rural advocate, because it seems to me that it is the duty of Members of Parliament to be the advocate for their constituents. There are many very effective advocates of rural residents and constituents.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs proposes to consult on the AWB in the autumn. It will be part of a wider consultation package on the future of the agricultural wages committees and the agricultural dwelling house advisory committees.

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[Tessa Jowell]

My hon. Friend is obviously correct. I intend to make some progress now, but I will come to precisely that point in a little while.

We would have saved £500 million by 2012-13 as a result of planned and properly costed change and reform. We also accepted that there is scope for further reform. We agree that the Railway Heritage Committee should be reformed and that the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts should enter the voluntary sector. We also support the reform of a number of other significant bodies. The problem is not with reform, nor is it with the tests that the Minister has set for that reform, as I will set out in a moment; the problem is with his ill-thought-out and rushed through Bill. There has been confusion about what the Minister’s motives are. First he told us this week that the Bill was about, as he put it, “sound money”; later we were told that it was about underpinning good government. However, whether the issue is money or good government, the Government’s proposals in this Bill are certainly not the answer.

The Government are asking the House to agree to the abolition of important bodies such as those raised by my hon. Friends in interventions—they include Consumer Focus, the Commission for Rural Communities and the Football Licensing Authority—but the right hon. Gentleman cannot yet tell us what he will put in their place. He has also claimed £30 billion in savings when the reality is that the Government will save £1.6 billion—or less, when redundancies have been paid for.

[Andrew George]

I hope that the right hon. Lady would agree that rather than trading figures for partisan purposes, we need to have a proper audit of what is going on. A moment ago she mentioned the Commission for Rural Communities. As that body is being brought in-house by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—that is probably a sensible thing to do—we do not necessarily know whether that will be counted as a saving or whether the costs will be lost from the overall audit of what quangos cost the country. At the end of the day, however, the important point is the one that I made earlier. We need a rural advocate that is independent of all the partisan debate that we have in this place.

[Tessa Jowell]

The hon. Gentleman has set out the precise nature of the debate that will need to take place in Committee, because losing the independence and the advocacy role of a number of these significant bodies will harm the proper process of representing interests that often get too little hearing in this House.

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[Tessa Jowell]

Yes, we certainly have. I should like to refer the right hon. Gentleman to the programme of reform that was clearly set out by the previous Government, on which I am sure full information is available in his Department. If not, I am happy to provide it for him. It involved £500 million-worth of savings by 2012-13.

Let me now turn to some of the specific bodies listed in the schedules to the Bill. When the Minister began this process of reform, he said that public bodies would be allowed to remain if they fulfilled one of three criteria—namely, if they performed a technical function, if they dealt with issues that required political impartiality or if they needed to act independently to establish facts. I should like to say to the Minister that those are good, rigorous tests of public bodies.

Let us apply those tests to the Agricultural Wages Board. If the Minister believes that we should preserve bodies that perform an important technical function, surely the board should be removed from the Bill, because it sets the pay of 140,000 people in England. That also covers holiday pay, sick pay and overtime. If the board is abolished, fruit pickers and farm workers will see their wages fall. Workers could lose between £150 and £265 a week in sick pay, because that would no longer be guaranteed. School-age children working at weekends or in summer jobs will also lose out. The Farmers Union of Wales has warned that

“unless there are systems in place to protect payments to agricultural workers, the industry will not attract the highly skilled technicians it needs to thrive.”

I hope that the Minister will recognise that Labour is seeking to help him by today launching our “Back the Apple” campaign, which shows our commitment to fairness in the countryside and our backing for the Agricultural Wages Board. It is a precious asset that helps to ensure the decency of fair wages and to enable people working in the countryside get a fair deal.

[Andrew George]

rose—

[Tessa Jowell]

Let me turn briefly to the Commission for Equality and Human Rights—

[Andrew George]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. There should be only one person on their feet. If the shadow Minister does not wish to give way, the hon. Gentleman should recognise that fact.

[Tessa Jowell]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) did not catch my eye—

[Andrew George]

rose—

[Tessa Jowell]

I must make some progress; I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will have a chance to speak later.

The Minister’s second criterion for the preservation of bodies was that they should deal with issues that require political impartiality. The Commission for Equality and Human Rights is an example of one such body. It exists to break down inequality and to build opportunity and the type of society in which fairness and a life of dignity and respect are not merely an ideal but a fact. The commission’s inclusion in schedules 3 and 5 to the Bill leaves it open to being rendered ineffective by having its constitution altered, or its functions amended or transferred. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to think again. Only a year ago, the coalition told us that it was going to “tear down” the barriers that people faced as a result of who they were, and that it would stand up for fundamental human freedoms. In defending the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, will he stand up for the fundamental human freedom that it represents?

The third type of body to be preserved under the Minister’s tests are those that need to act independently to establish facts. Consumer Focus is an excellent example. It is the statutory consumer champion, and it has strong legislative powers.

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[Mr Hurd]

I am happy to give my hon. Friend the reassurance that the Department is extremely sensitive to concerns. As he knows, the funding settlement reduces S4C’s funding by the same amount as the DCMS’s, at about 25% over the comprehensive spending review period. We consider that fair. I do not think there is an argument about the unsustainability of the current funding arrangements for S4C. The proposed amendment described in the written ministerial statement—it was reassuring that many colleagues took great comfort from the statement—makes it clear that S4C will be funded for the long term to deliver its vital statutory functions. Everything we are proposing is about how we protect S4C, not undermine it.

Let me touch on the Agricultural Wages Board. The hon. Members for Luton South (Gavin Shuker) and for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) were eloquent on the subject. The Agricultural Wages Board was set up to represent agricultural workers and ensure that they are paid appropriately. That is an example of a body that is no longer needed, as pay for all workers is protected by the national minimum wage, so there is no longer a need for separate representation for agricultural workers, a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Richard Harrington).

[Andrew George]

I lead on DEFRA matters for the Liberal Democrats and hope that the Minister understands that I oppose the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board. Rural workers are exceptionally isolated and in an exceptional position that I think justifies exceptional protections.

[Mr Hurd]

I think that the House understands, as the Government certainly do, that the hon. Gentleman is opposed to the abolition, but I do not think that that changes our view that separate representation for agricultural workers is no longer needed.