I am sure that the noble Baroness would agree from her long history of trade union negotiations that you can always find someone who takes a differing view. However, I have to tell her that if one talks to farmers throughout the country and to large numbers of farm workers their view is simple: this board has been an irrelevance for a very long time. Many of them feel it to be an insult to suggest that this portion of humanity, this group of people, should be singled out and defended on the basis that they cannot be trusted to run their businesses or to negotiate in the way that everyone else in Britain does.
I particularly objected, if I may say so, to the comments of the noble Lord who suggested that it would be much easier to keep the wages board because it is too complicated for farmers and farm workers to negotiate. My goodness, what a miserable society it is in which we have to have things done on a collective basis because individuals who work with, talk to and care about each other are unable, too stupid or do not have the time to work out the relationships between them, both financial and in terms of employment. It is a harking-back occasion. This Committee often reminds me of discussions—