My Lords, I fully support the Government’s desire to abolish the Agricultural Wages Board. I declare an interest as a tenant farmer in Northumberland. I started my business in 1971, employed two young people who had left school, and built up the business until I employed six. Though I no longer employ staff, I have done so for most of my professional life. As a contrast, I also chair the Leckford estate for Waitrose, where we employ 170 staff. My key interest in this debate, however, is as chair of the Better Regulation Executive—and this is an important deregulation measure. I consider myself to be firmly embedded in the agricultural community. I know lots of farmers and I know no farmer who rewards their staff at Agricultural Wages Board rates. The NFU has 70% farmer membership and most of those who are not members do not employ staff.
The Agricultural Wages Board is a relic of the past. In 2002, in a report for which I was responsible, commissioned by the previous Administration, I recommended that its future be reconsidered. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and I had interesting conversations about the wages board at the time. No other industrial sector has a wages board. We do not have one in construction or in transport: why in agriculture? The perception seems to be of a sector stuck in a Lark Rise to Candleford era where employees are exploited by unscrupulous employers who resemble the mill owners of the 19th century. Nothing could be further from the truth. The agricultural sector is now a highly professional industry. Today’s employees have to be skilled to cope with the technological changes that are taking place at an unparalleled rate. The cab of a modern tractor is now like the cockpit of an aircraft.
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Like other Peers, I have been lobbied strongly to retain the board because of the fear that wages will plummet if the board is abolished and “families will face destitution”. This is complete nonsense and scare tactics. The impact assessment had to consider the possibility, in the extreme, that wages would decline over time to national minimum wage levels, but that is
such a remote possibility that it should be disregarded. A debate on what the level of a living wage in the countryside should be would be extremely helpful.
The board has been in existence for 65 years. Has the world not changed a lot in that time? The parties concerned meet for their annual sport and confront each other. Eventually the smoke comes out of the chimney and the world continues as before. In the past, most employees were stuck in tied cottages. Now, however, they are far more mobile than they have ever been. If they wish to move, they can. Recruiting and retaining good people is a real challenge. If attractive reward packages are not offered it is impossible to recruit workers. The agricultural industry is mature and professional.
The market has moved on and the wages board is stuck in a time warp. It is reflected in some of the responses to the consultation that, as long as the wages board exists, many farmers will continue to abdicate their responsibilities for negotiating terms with their employees and simply adjust their salary levels annually when the wages board pronounces its decision. It is time for that to stop and for employers to properly take on the responsibility—as I am convinced they will—to reward their employees for the skilled and responsible work they do in a world where their role is becoming ever more important with climate change, environmental management and food security so high on the global agenda. The wages board could be a drag on progress, and reward packages will improve without it.
With others, I am spending a considerable amount of time promoting agriculture as a career. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, I am a patron of Lantra, the association of colleges, and I must inform the House that, in promoting agriculture to students, the wages board does not feature at all. It is obsolete, irrelevant and should be abolished.