Agricultural Wages Board Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Martin Caton
Main Page: Martin Caton (Labour - Gower)Department Debates - View all Martin Caton's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(12 years, 2 months ago)
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Martin Caton (in the Chair)
My apologies for being late. I call Mr Jamie Reed to speak.
Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Caton, for calling me to speak. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, I think for the first time. I am very grateful to have been granted a debate on this important issue, the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board.
Martin Caton (in the Chair)
Order. I am afraid that that point is not about the statement, and therefore it is not a point of order. I call Jamie Reed.
Mr Reed
Such excitement so early on. I think that it can only be the new working hours unsettling us all. However, there will be ample time to discuss all the issues that Members wish to raise.
The Agricultural Wages Board, in one form or another, has provided good wages, good working conditions and good lives to farm workers since 1924. Before I continue, I must thank the Minister for providing early sight of the written ministerial statement today, before we began proceedings. I appreciate that courtesy.
I want to touch on three issues in my speech today. First, the AWB allows farmers to focus on farming. They do not have to be employment specialists and they have no need to negotiate with their work force over pay and conditions. Secondly, the AWB is the most effective way of ensuring that regional part-time, young and even full-time employees in the farming industry are not exploited. Without the protection of the board, they will be vulnerable to lower pay and worse conditions. Thirdly and finally, the AWB is so much more than a body for setting wages and conditions. On one level, it ensures that a shepherd has the funds to look after their most valuable asset, which of course is sheepdogs; that tenant farmers have secure homes to live in; that farm workers have good overtime and night work rates, fair stand-by allowances and sick pay; and that agricultural workers of all types are provided with suitable bereavement leave and holiday entitlements.
The Government’s planned abolition of the AWB puts all of that at risk. I welcome the appointment of the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) to his new post of farming Minister. I hope that he can bring an appreciation of the farming industry and its workers to this Government. In my view, that appreciation has been significantly lacking for too long.
This is not the first time that the Tories have attempted to abolish the AWB. Baroness Thatcher attempted to abolish it, but she changed her mind when she realised that it was a vital organisation for farmers and farm workers. Sadly and in some ways inexplicably, when I look at the Minister, this Government are proposing to abolish an organisation that even Margaret did not want to abolish.