THIS afternoon MPs will get a chance to discuss the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board.
The Government believes the Board is outdated and unnecessary and has included provision in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill to abolish it and place agricultural workers’ pay and conditions under the control of the National Minimum Wage and Working Time Regulations.
However it has come under fire because the relevent clause was introduced as an amendment when the Bill was before the House of Lords and therefore it was not debated by MPs, something the Unite union has described as a “stain on democracy”.
Mary Creagh, the shadow environment minister, has said the Board’s abolition will add to the regulatory burden of small businesses in the agricultural sector rather than ease it, and said: “Many small farmers want to keep the AWB so they don’t have to become employment law specialists”.
Last week she complained in the House of Commons that MPs had not had a chance to discuss the issue, saying: “How can it be right for a proposal that will undermine wages for many rural workers to be enacted without this House ever having the chance to debate and challenge the Government on these proposals?”
