In a narrow victory for the Coalition government, members of the House of Lords voted to abolish the Agricultural Wages Board yesterday.  Voting in the Lords saw the government's Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, to which legislation on the Agricultural Wages Board is attached, passed by a slight majority.

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The Agricultural Wages Board sets the pay and conditions for around 150,000 agricultural workers across England and Wales, over the course of negotiations between unions representing workers, the NFU and government officials.

Peers concerned over the impacts AWB closure would have on the livelihoods of agricultural workers managed to stall the bill at the committee stage and force a vote in January. However, in the event, Conservative and Lib Dem peers united against Labour on Wednesday to scupper attempts to save the board.

Despite the Labour peers' efforts, an amendment to the bill tabled by Labour's Lord Whitty, which proposed the wage board be spared, was defeated by 192 votes to 163.

Although defeat in the Lords marks a significant setback for attempts to save the AWB, the bill is expected to be challenged once more at the Consideration and Amendments stage in the House of Commons. Labour MPs said this will be their "first and only" opportunity to challenge the legislation in the Commons.

Government and industry leaders claim the board is an anachronism, which stands in the way of implementing "modern and flexible employment" practices. However, trade unions, some sections of the farming community and the devolved governments all maintain that Agricultural Wage Boards continue to perform a vital function in safeguarding the rights of seasonal and sometimes precarious workers.

Trade union Unite staunchly opposes the government's plans. On Tuesday, Steve Leniec, chair of Unite's rural and agricultural workers committee, 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."

Furthermore, whilst the Coalition has touted AWB abolition as a means of reducing bureaucracy in the farming sector, Welsh farming industry groups have warned that doing away with the board would increase the administrative burden on farmers. Labour's Lord Whitty, who was defending the board in the House of Lords on Wednesday, pointed out that the board's work in negotiating pay and conditions has actually been beneficial to small farmers.

The Agricultural Wages board is the last such board remaining in England and Wales. The wage boards, which were intended to support workers in low paid and potentially vulnerable positions, were dissolved in the 1980s, but the then government elected to retain the AWB to prevent agricultural workers' wages from being driven down to unacceptably low levels. In recent voting, Scotland and Northern Ireland have opted to retain their AWBs.  

AWB supporters accuse government of underhand tactics

In addition to the controversy over its desire to scrap the AWB, the government's conduct in pursuing its aim has been called into question. From the decision to attach AWB legislation to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill instead of a public bodies bill, which was announced shortly before Parliament broke up for Christmas in 2012, to holding an extremely short public consultation on the closure, opponents have accused the Coalition of using underhand tactics to execute its plans.

In January, Unite's agriculture officer Julia Long said, "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."

Labour politicians have also suggested the government is attempting to circumvent any challenges to its decision to do away with the board. Shadow farming Minister Huw Irranca-Davies said the government's comportment has been "shameful and anti-democratic" yesterday, suggesting the Coalition had made efforts to avoid debate in the Commons and consultation with the Welsh Government, which opposes AWB closure.

Last year, 63 percent of respondents to a government consultation on the closure were in favour of retaining the board. Apparently contradicting claims that AWB abolition is merely an exercise in administrative housekeeping, and that workers will be protected by minimum wage and employment legislation, Defra's own consultation documents reveal that AWB closure will result in a "Reduction in sick pay paid by farmers, decreased annual leave [and] reduction in wages paid by farmers," coming at "a cost to workers."

Trade union Unite claims that Defra figures suggest AWB abolition would strip £247 million in lost pay from the rural economy over the next 10 years.