My Lords, nobody is disputing that, at present, after years of operation of the Agricultural Wages Board and the economics of the industry, a lot of agricultural workers are paid above the minimum rate and above rates in some other industries. To that extent, I agree with him. My point is that the Government have refused to do what the House asked them to do under the Public Bodies Bill and present us with a full explanatory memorandum with arguments for the abolition and arguments against any other alternatives. They have tried to cut corners on this, but their own experts tell them that the net effect of this will be a substantial cut in rural workers’ incomes.
If the House votes for the Government’s amendment and defeats my amendment to that amendment, that is what they are voting for tonight and they had better recognise it. That is the message they will be sending
out to rural areas. I am looking perhaps particularly to people on the Liberal Democrat Benches who were not committed by their manifesto to this abolition, as the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said. I do believe that the Government have got this wrong. We could have had a more coherent debate had we gone down the route of the Public Bodies Bill and the Government had produced their range of statistics and we could have had a sensible argument. Instead, we have a minimalist consultation, minimalist information and the Government sticking to an ideological position, supported by some elements of the farming industry but by no means all, and prepared to try and push through something which has an impact on the incomes of a lot of rural workers and their families. My amendment would allow a better way forward, a modernising way forward, and a reduction of bureaucracy, but it would retain the central protection that those agricultural workers have had and which they deserve to retain.