Oral Answers to Questions

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paice]

We have already announced our intention to abolish the Agricultural Wages Board, which has gone unchanged for the past 50-plus years. It is entirely inflexible and unable to face up to modern needs. For example, a farmer is not even allowed to pay a worker a salary under the Agricultural Wages Order, which is nonsensical. We now have the minimum wage legislation, and it is only right that we should bring agricultural legislation into line with the rest.

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

As we have just heard, the Secretary of State announced in July the plan to abolish the Agricultural Wages Board, which sets terms and conditions in an industry where pay is low. That is a step that, as the House will recall, even Baroness Thatcher shied away from. Will the Minister try to explain why setting wage rates of between £5.95 an hour—which is only just above the minimum wage—and £8.88 an hour constitutes the burden of which he speaks? Where is the evidence for that?

[Mr Paice]

The issue is one of inflexibility, because of the wages orders implemented through the Agricultural Wages Board. The right hon. Gentleman has just made the point that the minimum wage for agriculture is 2p an hour more than the national minimum wage, so what is the point of having a whole superstructure of an Agricultural Wages Board for the sake of 2p an hour? That question answers itself. The right hon. Gentleman talks about who is responsible for abolition, but he should remember that it was Labour policy to abolish the Agricultural Wages Board and the Government were forced to rescind it by the Warwick agreement when they were in hock to the Liberals—[Interruption.]—I mean the trade unions.

[Hilary Benn]

There we have it—we see the burden under which the Minister is having to labour! That was no justification at all, because as the Minister is well aware, grades 2 to 6 will not be covered by the minimum wage legislation, and what about overtime rates and standby and what about bereavement leave? Does the coalition have something against the Agricultural Wages Board providing an entitlement to bereavement leave for farm workers? When will the Minister admit that all this talk about flexibility and so forth is nothing more than a smokescreen for a shabby little plan to cut the wages of agricultural workers?

[Mr Paice]

That just demonstrates how behind the times the right hon. Gentleman really is. In today’s modern economy, we must have flexibility. We do not have wages boards for other sectors. His Government never brought back any of those abolished by the previous Conservative Government. If this system is so wonderful, why did Labour not bring any of those back? The answer is that at least some of his colleagues recognised the need for that flexibility. The reality is that the industry should make its own decisions in negotiations with its workers in tandem with the advice of the National Farmers Union.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Spelman]

I will be very happy to meet my hon. Friend, who shows a commendable desire to do his best for his constituency and region. I have to inform him that DEFRA has all around the country a large number of outposts, which, during the recess, the ministerial team—including me; I went to Worcester and Bristol— made a great effort to visit. That diversification is part of our resilience.

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

Given that DEFRA is an economic Department with very big European responsibilities, is it not astonishing that the Secretary of State is not listed as being a member of either of the Cabinet committees responsible—the Europe and economic affairs committees—whereas the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government is a member of both and, moreover, appears to be making waste policy. Why has the Secretary of State allowed DEFRA’s influence to be downgraded in that way, and how can the Department be at the heart of the Government when she is not even on the main Cabinet committees?

[Mrs Spelman]

I am very happy to inform the right hon. Gentleman that I have attended every single one of the economic affairs Cabinet committees. The structure of the Cabinet committee is about to be changed, so there will be a sub-committee of the Departments that have the most dealings with Europe. DEFRA, with 80% of its business determined at a European level, is one of those.