MP calls for Lords veto on axing of rural wages body

The House of Lords is voting on plans to scrap the Board later today which the Coalition has described as “outdated and bureaucratic”.

The Agricultural Wages Board sets minimum pay levels for around 140,000 fruit pickers and farm workers across the country, including 12,500 people in Yorkshire.

The Government’s own figures suggest that abolishing the Board will take £260m out of the rural economy over the next 10 years simply through lost holiday and sick pay.

Labour is now launching a campaign aimed at saving the Board and promises to make it a theme of its campaign to win county council seats in May.

Shadow Environment Secretary Mary Creagh, MP for Wakefield, said: “David Cameron’s out-of- touch government has delivered a bitter blow to the rural economy and to thousands of low-paid farm workers across Yorkshire who will be worried about their pay falling.

“We a need a One Nation plan for the countryside to tackle the rural cost of living crisis, protect buses and public services, and invest in rural jobs and growth.

“The Government needs to urgently rethink what they are doing to agricultural workers in Yorkshire and the House of Lords should vote against this unfair measure.”

Ministers set out their plan to abolish the Board at the end of last year as part of wider efforts to reduce bureaucracy in the food and farming industries.

The Government argues the move will help farmers save money, make the rural labour market more flexible and allow agricultural workers to receive annual salaries rather than hourly wages.

The move is also backed by the National Farmers Union which believes the current regulations have been overtaken by minimum wages laws.

But the Unite union is joining Labour in urging Peers to vote against its abolition, claiming the result would be falling wages for thousands of workers.

Labour believes championing the issue could help it make inroads at the May elections to North Yorkshire County Council, where it has a single councillor.

A Defra spokeswoman said: “Abolishing the Agricultural Wages Board is in the long-term interests of the farming industry and farm workers.

“Like all other workers across the economy, they will protected by the national minimum wage and modern employment legislation.

“Our position remains that AWB is an employment issue which is not devolved from national government.”

Peers are due to vote to abolish the Board today as an amendment to the Government’s Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bull.