Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Viscount Eccles Excerpts

Wednesday 1st December 2010 Lords Chamber

[The Duke of Montrose]

Perhaps I might intervene again. Having listened to the various speeches around the House and particularly to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Morris, giving the story of the very essential and important work that the agricultural wages board has done over the years, we need to consider how things have moved on. One element which is very different now is that all employers and all jobs are subject to the Health and Safety Executive. All accidents must be reported to the Health and Safety Executive, so that deals with one element which perhaps the agricultural wages board used to look into.

The other point, which the noble Lord, Lord Corbett of Castle Vale, spoke about, is the difficulty in the grading of agricultural workers. One big difference now is that, in the nature of things, agricultural workers acquire certificates and they come with a grading of their own. If someone applies to you for a job, he can produce certificates of his skills and certain elements. In my part of the world, I do not see a danger of reduced wages because there is a shortage of skilled men and they are now, more or less, in a position to name their price.

[Viscount Eccles]

My Lords, I reinforce the argument made by my noble friend. I drove a tractor some time ago—1943, I think it was. Whether I was underage I will leave the House to decide. I remember that we were very happy if we got 30 hundredweights an acre. We stooped it, then it was put in a stack, and it was then thrashed by a threshing machine that came around at about this time of the year.

Today, you have a computer-controlled combine harvester that does the whole thing on its own. It is about two and a half times the width of the old cutters that we used to have. I will gamble that there are very few farmers that own one of those combines. There are some in Norfolk, in the grain area of the east of England, but in my part of England—in north Yorkshire—none of the farmers owns their own combine harvester. The contractors own it—and they do the potatoes as well. There are no labourers left in north Yorkshire in agriculture. No such person exists any longer. If there is not a skill, then you cannot employ anybody in agriculture in north Yorkshire—I am not sure about north Scotland.

I contend that—never mind the £8-something—you will not get that combine driven by anyone paid anything less than £10 an hour. The statistics that I would like to understand are the actual wages in agriculture today, because—believe you me—they do not bear much relationship either to the minimum wage or to the wages that were set on 1 October by the board which we are discussing.

[Baroness Quin]

My Lords, I, too, support strongly the amendment and pay tribute to the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, introduced this debate. It has been an interesting and powerful debate, and noble Lords from around the House have certainly brought their experience to bear on this issue. We even had the personal experience of my noble friend Lord Clark of Windermere, who, at an earlier stage in his career, was affected by the decisions of the agricultural wages board.

We were reminded by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, that the board, in one form or another, was established a long time ago—in 1924—and has been a tried and tested institution. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, also referred, as I think did the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, to industrial action. Happily there has not been industrial action in the agricultural industry since 1923—significantly, the year immediately before the establishment of the board. However, I support the agricultural wages board not simply because it has been here for a long time. The Minister misquoted me in our last debate when he said that I had said at some point,

“that everything should continue as it is just because it always has existed in the past”.—[Official Report, 29/11/10; col. 1360.]

I can assure him that I have never said anything remotely like that, and I am very often persuaded of the need for all kinds of change. I hope, after what has been said today, particularly by my noble friends and by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, that the Government will think again about the decision to abolish the agricultural wages board. I think they should reconsider it very seriously indeed in the light of this discussion.

A number of noble Lords mentioned consultation, and there certainly has been next to no consultation on this decision. The Minister, in answer to a Written Question from me, said:

“No specific consultation was undertaken prior to the decision to abolish the Agricultural Wages Board”.—[Official Report, 26/10/10; col. WA 245.]

It is my understanding that the Welsh Assembly Government criticised their notification of this as being totally inadequate; they were given one week to respond. Indeed, in an answer to a Question from the former Defra Secretary of State in the other place, Hilary Benn, again the lack of consultation was clearly evident. Given that the agricultural wages board has been a very long-standing feature of our economic and agricultural landscape, to have no consultation is very serious indeed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Eccles]

We seem to concentrate only on whether something saves money, but the public are not interested only in saving money. They believe they are over-governed, that there is too much regulation and too much interference in their lives, and that there are too many bodies carrying out functions which most likely could be carried out better somewhere else. They want to see the system simplified, and I believe that this House should remember, when they are discussing these matters, that it is not only a matter of money; it is also a matter of making life less complicated.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, I am pleased to move on to this series of amendments, and I will first turn to the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Arbitration Tribunal. This was set up under the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act 1977 and related to the nationalised industries in aircraft manufacture and shipbuilding. These nationalised industries no longer exist and the tribunal is redundant. Similarly, the purpose of abolishing British Shipbuilders as a corporation is to simplify the administration of the funding and handling of British Shipbuilders’ residual liabilities. These liabilities will be transferred directly to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which will provide a long-term solution to managing these liabilities.

The Government are committed to making compensation payments to former employees of British Shipbuilders, and I can give an indicative figure of the level of those compensation payments. They come to about £7 million a year. I hope that helps. The tribunal itself does not cost anything, as there are no standing costs and it does not have any employees. The compensation payments for former employees cover such injuries as mesothelioma, which were the result of their employment with British Shipbuilders. The payments are in line with the obligations that British Shipbuilding had to its employees.

British Shipbuilders Corporation was set up under the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act 1977. The corporation has no active trading operations and exists solely to meet its residual liabilities—litigation, insurance claims and other contractual matters— relating to its former employees. British Shipbuilders is effectively a shell company. In light of my assurances, I hope the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.