Agricultural Employment Practices (Lincolnshire) (Hansard, 18 February 1983)

§ Miss Joan Maynard (Sheffield, Brightside)
The case that I shall put today for our members in south Lincolnshire, Norfolk and the Cambridgeshire Fens is the case against gangmasters. I am not suggesting that all gangmasters are bad—obviously, some are better than others—but there is a growing problem for trade unionists in those areas.
The problem has to be considered in the context of the changes that have taken place in rural life and rural communities over the years. Rural areas have changed out of all recognition. In addition, there has been the shameful rise in unemployment. The traditional labour market of farm workers' wives has disappeared as the agricultural population has declined. There has been a decline in rural transport and in rural facilities in general. All those things have encouraged more workers to leave rural areas.
Therefore, when farmer; need temporary labour at peak periods, whether for brassica, potatoes or bulbs, they turn to gangmasters to supply that labour—in other words, they deal with the gangmaster and he engages the workers.
Increasingly, work on farms has been casualised, and I need hardly say that the casual rate—or the seasonal rate—is the lowest rate. For full-time workers the rate is £1.89 per hour, for part-time workers it is £1.74 per hour, and for seasonal workers it is £1.60 per hour. The, part-time rate has gradually been phased out.
The seasonal workers who work under the gangmasters are covered by the agricultural wages board orders, but because of the unemployment in the areas concerned., the gangmasters are able to exploit the workers, who have no right to holidays or sick pay, and no insurance is paid by the farmer.
In the Holland area of Lincolnshire recently, 100 full-time workers in vegetable producing have been made redundant. They have now been replaced by seasonal or casual workers on a lower rate of pay doing exactly the same job.
Geest, a very large firm in the Holland area of Lincolnshire, has always had 12-week contract workers. It is now calling those workers seasonal workers and is paying them £1.60 per hour instead of £1.74 an hour. That represents a saving, in old money, of nearly three shillings per hour—a significant sum. It is difficult to unionise those workers, as I shall try to explain.
The system under which the women are engaged is more like the old casual dock labour scheme, under which dockers would go along to a particular place and hope that they would be chosen for a job. The women wait outside their doors in the hope that they will be given a job and some pay by one of the gangmasters. Anyone who is known to be a member of the union is never again given a job by certain gangmasters.
The example that I have given shows how silly is the statement that people would rather be poor and free. The truth is that when people are really poor they have no freedom, and they certainly do not have the freedom to become a member of a trade union in such circumstances. I would describe those conditions as 19th-century 641 conditions. Perhaps the Prime Minister would describe them as Victorian conditions. But that is what is happening in those parts of England today. As there is no system of licensing, any unscrupulous person can set up as a gang-master. With the high unemployment, he is able to intimidate the members of the work force, who desperately need to bring some form of income into the home.
The result is that there is widespread abuse of agricultural wages board orders, trade union rates are ignored, and there is no security of employment. The system is encouraging farmers in these areas to get rid of their regular labour and to bring in gangs instead, so the farmers are paying less per hour in wages, no sick pay, no insurance and no holiday pay. In other words, the farmers are doing very nicely out of the arrangement.
There are other implications. These people are not the employees of the farmer. He does not have to insure them. Nor is there any legal obligation on the gangmasters to do so. This can lead to serious consequences if a gang worker is involved in an accident on a farm because, presumably, he is not covered for industrial injury benefit and so on.
Farm workers in south Lincolnshire, Norfolk and the Cambridge Fens would like to see the reintroduction of licensing of gangmasters. Let me spell out what we think the conditions for a licence should be. We think that the licence should be obtained from magistrates and be valid for six months. Notification of an application for a licence should be made public to the relevant bodies—the Inland Revenue, the Department of Health and Social Security and the relevant trade unions, the National Farmers Union and the agricultural trades group. There must be a substantial licensing fee to deter fly-by-night boys from becoming gangmasters.
We think that there should be certain sanctions on these conditions. If within a three-year period any gangmaster was caught three times infringing the agricultural wages board orders or the employment legislation, he should be debarred from holding a licence for three years.
A contract laying out the terms, conditions and rates of remuneration would have to be presented to the employee on the date that he or she started employment. The contract would also have to be available at the time of an application for a licence.
I hope that I have set out the problem clearly and the kind of solution that our members would like.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Selwyn Gummer)
I find myself in some difficulty in replying to this debate as the hon. Lady seems to be unaware of the very considerable work that has been done on this matter by the Member of Parliament concerned. I am sad that the hon. Lady found it unnecessary, under the usual conventions of the House, to inform him that she was raising this matter, which has much to do with his constituency of Holland with Boston. I am also surprised that the hon. Lady should consider the matter so urgent that she was last in touch with my Department about it about a year ago.
The hon. Lady must accept that it is extremely damaging to the way in which the House operates that the Member of Parliament concerned, my hon. Friend the Member for Holland with Boston (Mr. Body), is not here. He is at the moment engaged in working on this matter in 642 his constituency with the people concerned. The hon. Lady did not have the courtesy to raise the matter with him or, as far as I am able to ascertain, with those hon. Members peripherally concerned who are themselves determined to see whether dangers arise from the practice of farmers using gangmasters.
The fact that the hon. Lady did not show hon. Members that courtesy leads me to believe that this is not a matter about which she is seeking the action of which she talks. In the first part of the hon. Lady's speech, she spoke of "our members". We in the House have only one representational role and that is to represent our constituents. It occurs to me that this Adjournment debate is really aimed more at the agricultural trades group of the Transport and General Workers Union than at resolving what I believe to be a real issue.
The hon. Lady has not been in touch with my Department for over a year. Therefore, in her mind it cannot be an urgent issue. Nor has the hon. Lady been in touch with my hon. Friend the Member for Holland with Boston. Therefore, it cannot be a matter that she thinks should be dealt with in parliamentary terms. After the extreme language that has been used it is very difficult—

§ Miss Maynard
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. That is just not true. I have spoken to the hon. Member for Holland with Boston (Mr. Body). He knows that I am interested in the matter and I know that he is interested in it.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bernard Weatherill)
Order. I think that honour is satisfied.

§ Mr. Gummer
My hon. Friend the Member for Holland with Boston has been in touch with me regularly on this important matter. I only say that to the hon. Lady because I take the matter seriously. It is most important that the raising of a matter of such seriousness should be done in the way that is most likely to achieve the end that we all want.
It is clear that the problem of gangmasters is of long standing. I am sure that the hon. Lady would not like to reintroduce the legislation that we once had on this subject because it was more concerned with the regulation of the morality of those working in gangs than with any other purpose. Tha legislation was passed in August 1867 and I think that the hon. Lady will agree with me that its terms are no longer applicable and that therefore any reintroduction of such legislation would be unsuitable.
I am sorry that the hon. Lady should have referred to Victorian conditions and so on, because this is a matter which should be discussed on a non-party basis. We are anxious to ensure that people are properly looked after in their employment and that their conditions are such that they are not exploited. That is clearly an objective which all hon. Members share.
Unlike the hon. Lady I represent an exclusively agricultural constituency. I spend a great deal of my constituency time dealing with the problems of agriculture. Any hon. Member who is concerned with the future of farming, farmers and farm workers is particularly interested in the dangers that might arise were the fall in the number of people working in farms and therefore the natural increase in the peaks of need for employment to lead to the recurrence of undesirable employment practices that have been known in the past.
643 I was particularly interested in the hon. Lady's comparison with the dock schemes which used to operate before the last war. I agree that in the past there have been some deplorable and unacceptable labour practices in all parts of British industry that none of us wish to see return. But when I consider more carefully the proposals and cases that the hon. Lady has put forward, I do not believe that it is true that there are large numbers of unscrupulous people who go in for intimidation of their work forces and that that is a widespread abuse—to use her words.
I am sure that there are cases when gangmasters behave in a way that the hon. Lady or I would not find acceptable, but I do not think that we solve these problems by blowing them up out of proportion and suggesting that they are much more widespread than we know them to be. It is an issue which, in terms of pressure from localities, is largely centred in Lincolnshire, particularly in the Holland with Boston area.
We have looked carefully at the position in our jobcentres and unemployment benefit offices. The Department of Health and Social Security has also looked carefully at its areas. There is no evidence of the kind of widespread abuse that the hon. Lady has put forward, although, were she to provide such evidence, I would undertake to consider it carefully, because I am at one with her in the belief that it would be unsuitable for a method of employment to be extensively used if it was open to a wide range of abuses. I do not believe that to be true now, but, if the hon. Lady were to show me evidence, I would take it up with great alacrity.
I recognise the problems and understand the difficulties that arise. It must be difficult to unionise people in such conditions and to achieve an exact factual background of what is happening. After all, we are discussing people who, in large part, are part-time or seasonal workers. Many of them are women, and many would, in any case, be working for only part of the year, even if full-time work were available. Such people are notoriously difficult to judge. It is difficult also to create a reasonable profile in deciding whether they have sufficient protection.
Gangmasters have clear responsibilities under the law. When acting as contractors, they are responsible for meeting the requirements of both the Agricultural Wages Act 1948 and the relevant DHSS and Inland Revenue regulations. That they do not do so is an arrogation by the hon. Lady. I have heard it mentioned before by right hon. and hon. Members on both the Government and Opposition Benches, and we shall investigate individual cases carefully. However, there is no sign that it is a widespread problem. If the hon. Lady can put forward evidence that it is, I shall be happy to investigate it.
The hon. Lady suggested that we should introduce a new Act of Parliament to place a licensing duty upon 644 magistrates and to impose arrangements for various Departments to be notified. That would not be sensible on current evidence, which does not suggest that it is a widespread problem. I accept that there is evidence to show that in one part of the country there is a limited worry. If it is as the hon. Lady suggests, I shat. consider the matter carefully and may have to revise my judgment. However, it is not proper for this Department, or any other, to introduce the legislation that she has suggested. I have discussed the matter with a number of neighbouring Members of Parlianent, especially my hon Friend the Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg), and the general view is that there is no current widespread problem that requires legislation.
There may be individual cases of gangmasters whose activities are contrary to the law. It is our duty to ensure that they are prosecuted, where that is appropriate, and that their future affairs are carefully monitored to ensure that there is no extension of abuses.
There is a consensus on both sides of the House that it is part of the duty of the House to ensure that people in employment are not exploited. But there is not a consensus to suggest that we should control or restrict arrangements made between employers and employees. Trade unionists would consider interference in collective bargaining to be unsuitable. Many others would say that it is part of the proper behaviour between employers and employees. We must draw a line between controlling that part of the market while ensuring that abuses do not mean that workers are so weak that they can be exploited.
The evidence before us and the evidence of the hon. Lady does not lead us to believe that the exploitation is such that it requires Government or parliamentary interference.
What has been brought before us might lead in some cases to undesirable practices which are covered by the present laws and with which we can deal. I beg the hon. Lady to realise that if we are to have a sensible attitude on both sides of the House to the problems of employment, particularly in agriculture where there is widespread good practice and good relations between farm workers and farmers, we should approach these matters in a spirit of concern and in a spirit of trying to find a mutually acceptable answer. Raising party political diffences does not help our mutual desire to improve the conditions under which people work and to advance an industry in which I have a constituency interest and the hon. Lady has a union interest.