My Lords, I apologise for having missed the first few words spoken by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, but I know where he was coming from. I cannot fully agree with my noble friend Lord Deben: I think it is actually the other way round. I employ a couple of agricultural workers and know the set-up as it now occurs up north. Of course, that is miles away from the historical situation that we used to have there, whereby agricultural workers had no security whatever. They had what the Scots termed a seeking-on day. If the farmer did not come and see you on your seeking-on day, you knew that you were leaving. That happened every six months.
The Agricultural Wages Board and other things came in and have satisfied that element. It has also covered a great many other things. The complaint on the other side should be that not enough agricultural workers have joined the union because the agricultural workers will be in a strong position when this is introduced. Admittedly, you get the awkward position, if there is a farmer who employs only one employee, that he could terminate his contract and immediately bring in something entirely new.
The Minister gave me a very good answer to my questions, which he was not able to provide in the debate, stating that there will be, on a new contract, no
automatic right to special rates of pay, but if you sacked the only worker you had, you would immediately destroy any chance of an amicable way of working in future. Not only that, if you had to renegotiate the contract, the other side could say, “I’m going to get my union representative along, and he will make sure that you comply”. Presumably, the union will also produce its own rates of pay. Of course, we now have these various certificates that you can gain, and from that you can develop a hierarchy of pay. So I should have thought that the fear of loss, while looking obvious initially, will, as the noble Lord, Lord Curry, said, work out the other way round.