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.