Members of the House of Lords have delayed the Westminster government's plans to abolish the Agricultural Wages Board. The debate over the future of the AWB looked set to be over in December, when the government shifted the reforms passing through parliament from a public bodies bill to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill with only hours left before parliament broke up for Christmas.  

This enabled the coalition to bypass a challenge from the Welsh government, which opposes the AWB closure. Welsh AMs reacted furiously to the "underhand" move, which they said "Circumvents and undermines the consent procedures in the Public Bodies Act that were carefully negotiated between the two governments."

The bill was up for discussion in the House of Lords on Wednesday, when some peers showed 'dissent' at the committee stage, meaning the government's late amendment to scrap the AWB will now be subject to a vote, instead of passing through the Lords smoothly, as the coalition had hoped.

The impediment to AWB closure was welcomed by trade union Unite, which had been lobbying Peers ahead of Wednesday's discussion. The union's national agriculture officer Julia Long said, "We applaud the intervention of those peers that did not want a large swathe of the agricultural workforce reduced to poverty wages. The government has behaved in a shambolic way in tacking on an amendment that will have a huge impact on the rural economy onto a business bill - the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform bill.

"Many peers are angry at both the government's plan to reduce rural workers' livelihoods and the underhand manner it is being done. A brake has been put on the government's pernicious proposal. There is still time to mobilise enough parliamentary support to halt the AWB's abolition."

Unite has said that 60 percent of responses to the government consultation on AWB closure were in favour of retaining the board. According to Defra's own figures, the board's closure would remove £247 million from the rural economy over the next 10 years.

The AWB negotiates the pay and conditions of around 150,000 agricultural workers in England and Wales. Similar boards once existed to represent workers in a number of low paid sectors, but all save for the AWB were stripped away by past governments. Scotland and Northern Ireland have opted to retain their Agricultural wages Boards.

The next test for the board will be in February or early March.