Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Hilary Benn and James Paice

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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Hilary Benn and James Paice

Thursday 24th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paice]

I have a lot of sympathy with the hon. Gentleman, whose constituency I have visited; I have probably had the same farmer saying the same thing to me there, as well as farmers in many other places over the many years when I sat on the Opposition side of the House. I tend to share his doubts about the six-day rule, but the advice I have received so far is that there is a very sound reason for it. It will certainly be one of the issues considered by the taskforce and I hope that, along with other such provisions, it will recommend getting rid of the rule.

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

May I associate this side of the House with the remarks of the Secretary of State about the late Peter Walker?

Regulation is very important in animal health, including in combating animal disease. Will the Minister therefore tell the House when a decision was taken that there would be a targeted cull of badgers in hotspot areas?

[Mr Paice]

As the right hon. Gentleman well knows, the commitment appears in the coalition agreement, so, bearing in mind that we have a new Government, I suppose the answer to his question is that the decision was taken when that coalition agreement was drawn up. Until that point, there were measures being proposed by the Conservative party and by the Liberal Democrats. There is a great deal of science concerning bovine TB. We are looking at all of it and drawing up our proposals, which we will publish and put out for consultation. As the right hon. Gentleman well knows, there is a valid case for addressing the reservoir in wildlife, including badgers, in this country, as has been done by every other country in the world.

[Hilary Benn]

If a decision has been taken that there will be a cull, which is what the Minister said at the Devon county show, why did he say in a written answer on 22 June that all the evidence would be considered “before taking a decision”? How will it help to deal with the disease when the two Ministers responsible appear to be saying completely different things?

[Mr Paice]

The former Secretary of State is desperately trying to create a division where none exists, because the situation is clear—in black and white, if I may use the phrase—in the coalition agreement. The considerations mentioned in the parliamentary answer to which he refers concern the details of how, where and who, along with all the other issues that have to be addressed in working out how to do a cull of badgers and how to integrate it with the badger vaccine deployment project.