Today MPs will gather to vote on the future of the Agricultural Wages Board. The vote in the House of Commons will be the only chance for MPs in the UK to vote on the controversial piece of legislation which passed through the House of Lords earlier this year.

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Although the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, to which AWB closure is attached as an amendment, was successfully stalled by concerned Peers in January, a second vote in the Lords saw the Bill move through the House last month.

The Agricultural Wages Board sets pay and conditions for agricultural workers in England and Wales through negotiations between the NFU, workers' union reps and government officials. The board is the last of its kind and fell victim to the government's 2010 bonfire of the quangos. AWB closure would affect 150,000 agricultural workers in England and Wales and, Defra figures suggest, closure would remove £247 million from the rural economy over the next ten years.

Although Welsh politicians and industry representatives, as well as trade unions, have condemned the government's proposals, the NFU in England has supported Defra in claiming the board is an anachronism.

Unions maintain that documents in the government consultation do not support this, revealing as they do that AWB closure would result in pay reductions, along with a loss of sick leave, annual leave and certain labour rights. Trade union Unite has claimed that 60 percent of responses to the brief consultation called for the board's retention.

Nevertheless, NFU Deputy President Meurig Raymond last week said, "The AWB, while appropriate in the era it was established, has now been superseded by modern-day developments such as the national minimum wage. Agriculture is the last remaining industry to have a wages board, leaving it totally out of step with the rest of the UK workforce, including others in the rural economy."

Unite disagrees. On Friday, union activists descended on the constituency surgery of Lib Dem president Tim Farron in Kendal to lobby the MP ahead of today's vote. Unite wants to avoid a repeat of March's House of Lords vote in which Tory and Lib Dem Peers joined together to see the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill passed.

Unite national officer for agriculture Julia Long said, "Tim Farron is being lobbied as he is president of the Liberal Democrats that could scupper this retrograde step being promoted by their coalition partners. Supermarkets and the growers who supply them are behind the Agricultural Wages Board’s abolition proposal as they want to drive down workers’ wages to poverty levels."