My Lords, this has been a helpful and somewhat lengthy debate, which has included some passionate speeches from all sides of the Committee. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions.
I will clarify a couple of points. First, in relation to a point that was made by my noble friend Lord Plumb and led to a mini-debate concerning the figures in relation to retaining the Agricultural Wages Board, my noble friend is right to highlight the cost of the board. I have been advised that over recent years, the annual cost of running it has been around £180,000 and, for the ADHACs and the AWCs, the cost is around £20,000. That is just for the record. Secondly, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, brought up the issue of rates of pay for farm managers. He quoted a rate of £14.10 per hour. I should like to clarify, and I hope he will agree, that he quoted the overtime rates, not the basic rates. The minimum hourly wage rate is £9.40 and the overtime rate is £14.10.
I will address directly some of the procedural issues that have been raised by noble Lords. The first issue was the question of whether the Agricultural Wages Board met the requirements of the Public Bodies Act procedures. This was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, my noble friend Lord Plumb, and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Health. The Public Bodies Act is only one legislative route open to the Government to abolish the board. It is not the only route and it is perfectly open to the Government to decide upon another legislative option.
It would be politic to explain a little more about this. The Public Bodies Act created a specific set of arrangements for the reform of a wide range of public bodies by means of secondary legislation, which included the consent of Welsh Ministers, even where they exercised only minor functions. Welsh Ministers have specific, minor functions under agricultural wages legislation, for example in relation to the appointment of members of the Agricultural Wages Board, and ministerial consent was therefore needed to the proposal to abolish the board under the Public Bodies Act. The Welsh Government refused to give consent without powers to set agricultural wages and other terms and conditions being transferred to the Welsh Ministers. The Government could not agree to this for two main reasons. First, we regard this as a non-devolved matter relating to employment and, secondly, this would involve using the Public Bodies Act to extend devolution in a way that was never intended. I hope that that goes some way to explain why the Agricultural Wages Board stood out on its own.