§ Mr. Cyril Smithasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement on the result of the surveys undertaken by his Department into the number of agricultural establishments that pay agricultural workers only the minimum rates set by the Agricultural Wages Board.
§ Mr. StrangI have been asked to reply.
Information on establishments is not readily available. That for employees derives from my Department's Wages and Employment Inquiry which takes in a statistical sample of about one-tenth of agricultural workers concerned in England and Wales. In the year ended 30th September 1974 the inquiry revealed that all but about 5 per cent. of the hired regular whole-time men—and about 10 per cent. in the case of women—were being paid at more than the relevant minimum rates, including thresholds, prescribed by the Agricultural Wages Board.