Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

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.

[Baroness Byford]

I would like to take the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, back to 2000 when we had a long debate on the CROW Act. Why do I refer to that? I do so because he has suggested that this bit has been slipped into another Bill. The CROW Act was four different Acts in one Act. The last bit dealt with areas of outstanding natural beauty. It went through the whole of the Commons before that bit was printed up at all. It then came to this House, and I was sitting opposite the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, when he introduced it formally at Second Reading. I said to him clearly at the time that I was not prepared to go into the Committee stage before we had that legislation before us to consider it as a whole Bill. So I think that his protesting too much about how this part of the Bill is being introduced is a little rich.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Deben]

I have listened carefully to the noble Lord, as I have on other occasions, and I think that he is missing the point. Indeed, he has revealed exactly the kind of concern that I have. Most of the employers of agricultural workers are larger employers because most of the smaller concerns do not employ any longer. That is one of the issues. To talk about the agricultural industry from that point of view is to talk about an industry which has passed. Ever since the passing of the Hunting Act we have gone through periods of listening to townspeople who do not know about the countryside talking about it in a way that they would find insulting if we who live in the country talked in the same way about the towns.

I say this to noble Lords opposite. It is impossible to defend an argument which says that uniquely among all jobs and professions, uniquely among all employers and uniquely among all employees, the small part of the agriculture and food industry to which this wages board applies has to be protected because it cannot otherwise stand up for itself. That is manifestly untrue, and it is insulting to a large section of the population. It also means that those of us who live in the countryside must again remember that people in this House and in the other place often debate our future with exiguous knowledge of what actually goes on Britain’s rural areas. I shall give way to the former Member for Newport.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

I am grateful to the noble Lord who knows my former constituency so much better than I and who insists that although I represented a rural constituency for 15 years, I know nothing about agriculture. I represented farmers and farm workers for many years.

The noble Lord has still not answered the question put to him by my noble friend. Why, when he was the Secretary of State for Agriculture, did he omit to abolish the Agricultural Wages Board?

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

My Lords, this has been a helpful and somewhat lengthy debate, which has included some passionate speeches from all sides of the Committee. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions.

I will clarify a couple of points. First, in relation to a point that was made by my noble friend Lord Plumb and led to a mini-debate concerning the figures in relation to retaining the Agricultural Wages Board, my noble friend is right to highlight the cost of the board. I have been advised that over recent years, the annual cost of running it has been around £180,000 and, for the ADHACs and the AWCs, the cost is around £20,000. That is just for the record. Secondly, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, brought up the issue of rates of pay for farm managers. He quoted a rate of £14.10 per hour. I should like to clarify, and I hope he will agree, that he quoted the overtime rates, not the basic rates. The minimum hourly wage rate is £9.40 and the overtime rate is £14.10.

I will address directly some of the procedural issues that have been raised by noble Lords. The first issue was the question of whether the Agricultural Wages Board met the requirements of the Public Bodies Act procedures. This was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, my noble friend Lord Plumb, and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Health. The Public Bodies Act is only one legislative route open to the Government to abolish the board. It is not the only route and it is perfectly open to the Government to decide upon another legislative option.

It would be politic to explain a little more about this. The Public Bodies Act created a specific set of arrangements for the reform of a wide range of public bodies by means of secondary legislation, which included the consent of Welsh Ministers, even where they exercised only minor functions. Welsh Ministers have specific, minor functions under agricultural wages legislation, for example in relation to the appointment of members of the Agricultural Wages Board, and ministerial consent was therefore needed to the proposal to abolish the board under the Public Bodies Act. The Welsh Government refused to give consent without powers to set agricultural wages and other terms and conditions being transferred to the Welsh Ministers. The Government could not agree to this for two main reasons. First, we regard this as a non-devolved matter relating to employment and, secondly, this would involve using the Public Bodies Act to extend devolution in a way that was never intended. I hope that that goes some way to explain why the Agricultural Wages Board stood out on its own.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Will the Minister also be good enough to explain to the Committee why it is acceptable for the Government to use the Bill to alter the effect of the Public Bodies Act, whereas it is not acceptable for the Opposition to use the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill to alter the effect of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I note the point that the noble Lord is making but I was addressing purely the issues relating to the Agricultural Wages Board. I do not want to address or make a comparison with any other issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I will move on to the issues that have been raised about the consultation period. Several noble Lords raised this issue, including the noble Lords, Lord Whitty, Lord Howarth of Newport and, indeed, Lord Knight of Weymouth.

The policy on the abolition of the AWB and related committees was first announced in July 2010, so there has been plenty of time for stakeholders and interested parties to make their views known. In particular, key stakeholders had the opportunity to do so during meetings of the Agricultural Wages Board and the Agricultural Wages Committees. The department felt that a four-week consultation period was proportionate and realistic, given the length of time that the policy had already been in the public domain. This is also in line with the Government’s new consultation principles.

In this respect I will address a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, when he expressed concerns about those principles. The new principles allow for a tailored approach to the circumstances and needs of a particular case. Twelve weeks is not necessary in every case. The principles say that the timeframes for consultation should be “proportionate and realistic”. The department considers that the timeframe for this consultation was appropriate, given that the policy had been known for some time, as I explained a little earlier.

As mentioned, we also sent the consultation document to 13,000 bodies and held six meetings throughout the country to enable views to be heard. This very much involved Defra, which was also very much involved in disseminating information to those bodies and to many businesses to make them aware of the launch of the consultation.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

I apologise for troubling the Minister again, but would he also explain, because I think people in Wales would be very interested to know his account of this, why one week’s consultation was good enough for Wales when four weeks was allowed for England?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I have to say that it was news to me—I have heard it today for the first time—that there was one week’s consultation. It is my clear indication that it was not one week. It was a lot longer than that. I do hope that it was at least four weeks, but I will certainly get back to the noble Lord to clarify this, as it is important.

The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, in expressing concerns about the consultation responses, also stated that he wanted clarification. On the question of where the consultation responses are, all the responses are publicly available in the Defra library. Moreover, Defra officials specifically alerted the former Unite leader to the availability of the responses.

On the content of the responses, it is worth pointing out to noble Lords that there were 939 respondees, of which 345—37%—agreed with the proposal to abolish the Agricultural Wages Board; some 575—61%—were against, and 2% were “don’t knows”. The main point I want to make is that of the 575 against, 242 came from the same website.