I have to say that it was news to me—I have heard it today for the first time—that there was one week’s consultation. It is my clear indication that it was not one week. It was a lot longer than that. I do hope that it was at least four weeks, but I will certainly get back to the noble Lord to clarify this, as it is important.
The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, in expressing concerns about the consultation responses, also stated that he wanted clarification. On the question of where the consultation responses are, all the responses are publicly available in the Defra library. Moreover, Defra officials specifically alerted the former Unite leader to the availability of the responses.
On the content of the responses, it is worth pointing out to noble Lords that there were 939 respondees, of which 345—37%—agreed with the proposal to abolish the Agricultural Wages Board; some 575—61%—were against, and 2% were “don’t knows”. The main point I want to make is that of the 575 against, 242 came from the same website.