The hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) did the House a service by pointing out the disparity between last night’s excellent debate in the name of the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies)—in which we heard contributions from all parts of the House, from Members who knew rural areas, knew the agricultural industry, were deeply committed to it and understood what the implications were—and today’s debate, which sadly has on occasions fallen short of that ideal.
That is not to say that there are not Members present who very much understand rural areas and represent their constituents, but that is not how I would characterise the opening speech from the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), representing Islington Labour and its deeply patronising view of what happens in rural areas and the capabilities of people who work in rural areas. I resent that in the same way that the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) did. However, we welcome the fact that the hon. Lady has finally returned to the Chamber to hear the conclusion, if not the substance, of the debate that she called.
Let us deal with the issues raised, the first of which is the lack of debate on this issue. I am extremely sorry: I regret that there have not been debates on the precise motions that came from the other place last week. However, to say that there has been no debate on the issue is nonsense. Over the last three years I have debated this subject for hours with Members represented in this debate. We have had endless debates on a subject on which everybody knew every side of the argument, so that claim is nonsense. We could even have addressed it—I say this to my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George), who made the point of order—when we had the debate on the Lords amendments the other day. Indeed, had the shadow Business Secretary, the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna)—whom we are always glad to see in this country from his clubbing expeditions abroad—decided that this issue needed to be debated, as colleagues say it does, he could have done so. There was time to debate it but he chose to make speeches on other subjects instead. That is why we had no debate.
The hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) said that there was no meaningful consultation and that we did not notify people. I sent 13,000 letters to every single person or organisation covered by the order on agricultural wages, explaining what was to be done and asking for comments. That is unprecedented. It did not happen under the Labour Government but we did it because we wanted to ensure that people had the opportunity to respond.
The issue of Wales was raised. Let me let the House into a secret: I did not produce the legislation that provided for the devolution settlement in Wales, and Labour’s devolution settlement did not devolve employment issues to the Welsh Assembly Government. That is why such matters remain an issue for this House and this Government. No amount of argument from Welsh Ministers will change that settlement, only a change in the statutory format for the devolution settlement, which I do not believe the Labour party supports.
Let us consider the substance of this case, which is the crux of the matter.