My Lords, I thank the Minister and everyone who has participated in the debate, particularly those who supported my amendments. Those who objected to my amendments, including the Minister, seem to have two points—that we have to get rid of archaic bureaucracy and that this will not have any effect because wages will be paid well above the rate and that farmers as employers will not notice the disappearance of the Agricultural Wages Board.
As for bureaucracy, most of us are on the same page. We are happy to see the abolition of the 31 bodies. Our amendments would allow significant modernisation and simplification of the procedures and substance of the Agricultural Wages Board. To answer the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, that is why that form of phrasing is there—to move to annual salaries and so forth.
Indeed, when I was Minister, as the noble Lord, Lord Curry, will recall, I tried to get a lot of modernisation through on the Agricultural Wages Board but to retain essentially the legal underpinning which is needed in this unique industry for an isolated, sometimes exploited workforce. We have had a benign picture of the way that farming operates, but actually we know that in large parts of farming and probably most obviously within horticulture, there is still some serious exploitation of workers in all their terms and conditions including their minimum wage. The Government have not answered
my points regarding amendment and reform of the Agricultural Wages Board rather than abolition.
On the point about wages, we are facing a serious dilemma. By abandoning the Public Bodies Act route, the Government have not presented to the House detailed information. The impact assessment to which we have all referred is an authoritative document. It says that the Government’s best estimate—not the most extreme case, not the worst case, not the lowest case, and not the highest case either—is that in aggregate £240 million will be taken out of the pockets of current and future workers within the agricultural sector. That is the view and best estimate, not of the Minister’s department, but of the department of the noble Lord, Lord de Mauley, of what is going to happen. Obviously, there is a range of probabilities, but the Government’s best estimate is that this measure will lead to a reduction in wages in the agricultural sector by £250 million. That is the bare fact of this.
No doubt, in many of the enterprises of the noble Lords, Lord Cavendish, Lord Cameron and Lord Curry—I am sorry to fall out with him, but at least we are both being consistent on this issue—there will be better pay and little impact. But all the Government’s statisticians, agronomists and economists are looking at the total situation and saying, “The net effect of all this in aggregate across the whole of the agricultural and horticultural sector will be a loss of wages of that order”. That is their best estimate and that is at odds with the noble Lord, Lord Cavendish, and the circle of farmers in which he moves. Although clearly they are in the same geographical area, they are a different lot from those among whom the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, moves. But, even if he is right for all those farmers, the Government’s view is that is not the total effect on the sector. Either the Government’s impact assessment is utterly wrong, or the anecdotal evidence from those who are close to land-owning interests in this House is not accurate.