A vote in the House of the Lords later today could affect the livelihoods of over 150,000 agricultural workers in England and Wales. Peers will be voting on the closure of the Agricultural Wages Board, machinations for which have been in place since 2010, when the board was earmarked as part of the Coalition Government's Bonfire of the Quangos.

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The Agricultural Wages Board sets pay and conditions for agricultural workers in England and Wales; critics of the government's plans have suggested AWB abolition would amount to a massive transference of wealth from farm workers to their employers, exacerbating rural poverty, which is already a growing concern in many parts of the UK. Unite, the trade union representing farm workers, has said Defra's own figures show that the board's closure would see £273 million directly changing hands over ten years.

Union activists briefed peers earlier this week ahead of the vote on Wednesday. In January, peers sympathetic to the plight of agricultural workers managed to halt the plans temporarily and secure a vote on the future of the AWB, after a reading of the bill dealing with AWB closure in the House of Lords.

In addition to negotiating wages in a tiered pay structure, AWB sets a range of conditions including sick pay, holiday entitlement, tied housing and many other employment provisions.

Steve Leniec, a farm worker from Oxfordshire and chair of Unite's rural and agricultural workers committee, told Farming Online in January that the majority of responses to a government consultation on AWB closure had been in favour of retention. The devolved governments of Scotland and Northern Irleand have voted to retain their wage boards and the Welsh government has called for the board to remain intact.

In Cardiff, Whitehall's decision to plough ahead with the abolition without consulting the Welsh government has caused outrage. Although the Coalition government maintains that the AWB is an anachronism, and that workers will be protected by minimum wage legislation, the Welsh government, along with much of the country's farming industry, supports retention and earlier this year AMs mooted establishing a separate Welsh board to perform a similar function to the AWB in the event of its closure.  

On Tuesday, Unite's Steve Leniec commented, "The government is calling the AWB a relic from a bygone era. In reality it has been an effective mechanism for collective bargaining since 1948, has ensured the good industrial relations vital in an industry where employer and employee work side by side, and has safeguarded in law the pay and conditions for hundreds of thousands of rural workers.

"These workers will see their wages plummet if the AWB is abolished, just at a time when we need to support a rural living wage and ensure our nation's food security with pay and conditions that will attract more young people into the industry."