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Mr. David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Gray: I am sorry. I am winding up my speech. Anyhow, the hon. Gentleman has not been here all evening. He wants a little quote for his local paper. I will not give way to him for that reason. He might like to attend for the entire debate. If he wants to take part in the debate, he should attend for the entire debate and not walk in and try to intervene on an hon. Gentleman's peroration.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has spent a lot of his life campaigning for what he describes as animal rights. He
has spent a lot of his life saying that animals are sentient beings and have the same rights as us. His friends in the animal rights movement are for ever saying--it is one of their famous quotations--that a dog is a cat is a human being; there is no difference between them. I do not agree.My father used a great expression which annoyed my mother a great deal. There was nothing sexist in the remark. He used to say, "Men are the lords of creation." He simply meant that human beings are the lords of creation. I believe that to be the case.
I believe it reasonable that human beings should use animals' meat to eat and their fur to wear. None of that seems unreasonable. The Parliamentary Secretary thinks it is, but he should not use such a Bill to expose his personal prejudices and to impose on people out there, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham convincingly argued, a Bill that will interfere with individual liberties and achieve nothing for animal welfare at all.
10.36 pm
Mr. Paterson: It is a pleasure to speak on the subject. I think that it is for the last time, as we have thrashed the matter out over many months. I declare that I have no constituency interest in the matter. I used to be remunerated in the leather trade. I stress that there is no connection between the leather trade and the fur trade because the leather trade processes a by-product of the meat trade. We are discussing the banning of raising animals specifically for fur.
I believe that a pluralist society cannot be run peaceably if the majority abuse their power over the minority. We are talking about a tiny number of people: 11 fur farmers own 13 fur farms, as against 8,000 fur farms on the continent, where, as I have said, it is a significant business--fur farming makes up perhaps 4 per cent. of Danish GDP.
The central nonsense of the Bill remains. I know that Labour Members do not seem to like evidence from Europe this evening, but I have a fax from the marketing department of the Charente Maritime Department in France. It states that 40 per cent. of rabbits are raised for meat and 60 per cent. for fur.
That is the central nonsense of the Bill. If it is passed, a British citizen could be fined £20,000 for keeping a rabbit in a cage, despite adhering to a raft of UK and European regulations. Exactly the same rabbit could be kept in the same cage and could be legally sold on for a profit. The difference is that the first rabbit would be killed for its fur and the second for its meat. That is totally illogical. Labour Members have failed to address that at any stage on the numerous opportunities that they have had to do so.
I do not want to go into the great raft of regulations governing those animals. If there were a case of animal cruelty, we could consider banning the activity, but the man in charge of ensuring that the activity is not carried out cruelly is sitting before us. He is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. He is in charge of the Mink Keeping Order 1997, the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1968, the Welfare of Animals (Slaughter or Killing) Regulations 1995, the 1991 Council of Europe convention on the protection of animals kept for farming purposes, and the EU directive on farm animal welfare.
The Parliamentary Secretary is the man who should be ensuring that there is no cruelty. There is a library of regulations that he should be enforcing. If there is cruelty, he is the man in charge and at fault, but no one in the course of debates on the Bill has talked about animal cruelty. Members have fallen back on something extraordinary called public morality, which appears to come down to the ability of the majority to trample wilfully on the minority for doing something that they do not like.
It is immoral to force the United Kingdom into what might be a huge legal battle with determined, well financed industrialists on the continent. As I have said, there are 8,000 fur farms on the continent and they have substantial financial resources. They have made it clear to me that they will confront the UK Government head on. They are convinced that the measure is incompatible with the European convention on human rights and that it breaches articles 28 and 29 of the EC treaty: the principle of proportionality and the principle of non-discrimination. They have made it clear that they are determined to stop it.
Today, I received a telling message from Wim Verhargen. He said that he was still determined to stop this measure in the European Court and that it was ridiculous to be able to buy a Government. He added that it was not a welfare discussion. He said that it opened the door to banning many other activities on the ground of public morality and that it was a very dangerous precedent to ban an economic activity in which welfare was not a problem. I heartily endorse that view.
The conditions for compensation are wholly inadequate. They are not detailed enough and they are not mandatory. The figures mentioned in the explanatory notes are derisory. I talked today to Mr. Gunter Pfeiffer, the only fur farmer in Europe to have a farm closed. Unfortunately, it was an extremely crackly mobile phone line and, although I learned my German in Vienna, he spoke with a strong Austrian accent. Still, the gist of the matter is that he was paid to cease his business. Although the law still allows fur farming in lower Austria, he was
paid a lump sum of 4.7 million Austrian schillings to close his farm. To show what a pointless exercise that was, he moved his whole operation to the farm that he already owned in the Czech Republic, just 30 km away.Exactly the same thing could happen in the United Kingdom. We have a large farm in the south-west that has a sister operation in Denmark. There will be no sum gain to mink happiness. Instead, there will be a huge bill to the British taxpayer. If there are about 25,000 female animals in UK mink farms and it costs £400 to compensate for each of them, the overall cost will be just over £10 million. That is a long way from the figure mentioned in the explanatory notes.
I do not believe that the Minister has gone into the issue in detail. For him it is a great victory. We know that the Labour party has received sums from animal welfare groups and that it considers it a triumph to get the Bill through. The Minister will be congratulated by Labour Members. However, it is immoral to spend a whole evening debating this issue when this country faces many much greater problems. We may have to spend £10 million of taxpayers' money to compensate for a business that is legal on the rest of the continent. The Bill is unsatisfactory, because it will launch the Government headlong into a lengthy and expensive legal battle with our European partners.
Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.
DELEGATED LEGISLATION
Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),
Parliament
- That the draft Attorney General's Salary Order 2000, which was laid before this House on 15th June, be approved.--[Mr. Pope.]
Agricultural Wages Boards
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.--[Mr. Pope.]
10.43 pm
Dr. Gavin Strang (Edinburgh, East and Musselburgh): I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the issue of the agricultural wages boards at a time when the Government are considering the future of the boards as part of the quinquennial review that they are required to carry out by statute.
My guess is that this is the first debate to take place in the House of Commons on the agricultural wages boards since devolution. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has direct responsibility for the Agricultural Wages Board for England and Wales, but the arguments that I deploy have equal force in Scotland and Northern Ireland where the decision is for the devolved Administrations.
British farm workers are skilled workers who deserve a decent rate for the job. I am sure that nobody would disagree with me on that point. However, individual farm workers are in an exceptionally weak negotiating position with their employers. They tend to be geographically isolated, operating in remote locations. They usually work alone or alongside just one other worker, and often their house goes with their job. About a third of agricultural workers live in tied accommodation, and in some parts of the country the figure is higher than that. There is little mobility of labour, and the social relationship between the farmer and the farm worker can bring its own pressures.
That is why the agricultural wages boards are so important. The boards provide the forum where both parties in the agricultural industry negotiate alongside independent members to reach an annual agreement on farm workers pay and conditions. The Government and the devolved representative bodies are currently considering the future of the boards under their quinquennial reviews. I am grateful for the opportunity to urge that the boards be kept, and that the Government explore options to expand their scope.
There has been a historical consensus of support for the agricultural wages boards across the farming industry and within the rural economy. Farmers do not want a minority in their midst undercutting them by paying exploitative wages, and they appreciate that the boards remove the time-consuming and stressful work associated with annual individual pay negotiations.
Furthermore, unlike other industries, farmers receive large sums of money from the taxpayer in the form of subsidies. It has long been accepted that as a quid pro quo, farmers should be required to provide statutory minimum rates of pay and conditions. Indeed, the Corn Production Act 1917, which first established the Agricultural Wages Board for England and Wales, also fixed minimum guaranteed prices for cereals.
The fact that the farming unions are currently split on the future of the boards is due to the crisis in the industry. That is understandable, but the crisis in the industry should not be used as a reason for abolishing or weakening the agricultural wages boards. The current trough, though deep and damaging, must be temporary. Farmers are under great pressure to cut costs, and a regrettable but defensible response would be to reduce the
working hours of a farm worker when less work needs to be done on the farm. However, it would be indefensible if the farm worker's rate of pay were eroded.Although the National Farmers Union and the National Farmers Union of Scotland report that their members currently want the boards abolished, the Country Landowners Association, the Farmers Union of Wales and the Transport and General Workers Union--the rural and agricultural workers union--are supporting the boards.
Policies that prevent the exploitation of rural workers, of course, have support which extends beyond the organisations that represent the industry. My right hon. Friend will be aware of the strong support expressed by the parliamentary Labour party agriculture committee for the continuation of the boards with at least their present responsibilities.
As well as the provisions of the agricultural wages boards, farm workers are protected by general employment law. It is to the credit of the Labour Government that employment law is much better than it was when last the future of the agricultural wages boards was up for review. The national minimum wage and the working time regulations are in place.
However, the improved legislation is in no way a substitute for the boards. The national minimum wage and the provisions of the working time regulations are intended as a floor below which it would be wrong to employ workers.
The agricultural wages boards are entirely different. First, I make the point again that the boards provide the forum where both parties in the industry reach an agreement on the pay and conditions of farm workers which reflects the state of the agricultural industry. The Country Landowners Association states that it is
- extremely important that the industry should continue to regulate the level of pay for agricultural workers and be able to take into account the peculiarities of employment in agriculture.
The board in England and Wales sets down rates of pay to reflect the skills of farm workers. In an industry where a career structure is difficult to establish owing to the small number of workers in each unit, this provides an incentive to train. The Farmers Union of Wales said:
- rewarding qualifications, levels of responsibility etc is a vital means of persuading high-calibre people to remain in or enter the industry.
The provisions of the wages boards are certainly better for farm workers than the national minimum wage and working time regulations, but it would be wrong to
imagine that they have been over-generous to farm workers. It must be remembered that they contain equal numbers of representatives of both farm workers and farmers. The minimum agricultural rate stands at about the same proportion of average male earnings as it did when the current board was established in 1947, and average pay in the agriculture, hunting and forestry sector is still £129 less every week than the average weekly pay in manufacturing.If the boards were abolished or weakened, not only agricultural workers would suffer. The board rates are used as a benchmark throughout the rural economy. I understand that the Country Landowners Association has an agreement with the TGWU to recommend to all its members that they pay their staff the AWB rates. Furthermore, if farm workers receive less pay, it will mean more rural social exclusion, less money spent in the rural economy and a greater cost to the state through the working families tax credit.
The last time the boards were reviewed, the Conservative Government threatened to abolish them altogether. Their intention was clear from the letter covering their consultation document. It said:
- On the basis of its view that statutory wage fixing arrangements distort the labour market and destroy jobs, the Government has already taken steps to eliminate statutory wages controls in other sectors where they exist.
- Will Labour keep the Agricultural Wages Boards?
- We see their continuing role as crucial to long-term prosperity within the industry.
There is a strong case for saying that the boards should be harnessed to do more: I commend to my right hon. Friend the proposal that their scope be extended to cover all workers in the rural economy who currently undertake agriculture-related jobs--gamekeepers, estate workers and so on. She will also be aware that there is a strong body of opinion that the boards should be used to develop a decent occupational pension scheme in the industry.
I understand that the Government are currently considering their review of the wages boards. I appreciate that my right hon. Friend will not be in a position to announce the outcome tonight, but I hope that she can give us a preliminary indication of her thinking.
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