Last year I devoted one of my regular Labour History articles to opposing the coalition government’s proposal to abolish the Agricultural Wages Board for England and Wales. Set up in 1948 by Labour cabinet minister Tom Williams, the Agricultural Wages Board had sought to give a long-term, stable future to the rural economy. It not only sought to regulate the wages of agricultural workers, but also was also concerned with the provision of living accommodation for them.
In the event, the coalition government had its way: abolition took place on 25 June 2013 by virtue of section 72 of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013. In response, Labour’s Welsh government almost immediately introduced the agricultural sector (Wales) bill, on 8 July 2013. This bill seeks to set up an Agricultural Advisory Panel for Wales, setting terms and conditions of employment for those working in agriculture.
The Welsh assembly passed the bill very quickly, on 17 July 2013. However, before the bill could receive royal assent, the attorney general for England and Wales referred the bill to the United Kingdom supreme court. The position of the UK coalition government was that this bill did not relate to ‘agriculture’ (which is devolved by section 108 and schedule seven of the Government of Wales Act 2006), but to ‘employment and industrial relations’ (which is not devolved).
The UK supreme court judges were not tempted by this interpretation. Section 108 of the Government of Wales Act specifies that ‘agriculture’ is a devolved area; schedule seven provides for an exception to this general position: occupational pensions. Robert Reed and John Thomas, who gave the legal judgment on 9t July 2014, said that: ‘The attorney general’s submission would in effect compel us to rewrite section 108 to make it operate in such a way as to add to the exceptions specified in schedule 7.’ They added that there would be a wide-ranging effect of accepting the position of the UK government: ‘Instead of the specific exception which parliament created in respect of occupational schemes, the court would create a much wider exception in terms of the remuneration of employees, or perhaps employment generally.’
Thus, the result was hands-down victory for the Welsh government. The agricultural sector (Wales) bill has now proceeded to royal assent, guaranteeing that the fine principles of the Agricultural Wages Board will at least live on in one part of the United Kingdom.
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Nick Thomas-Symonds is the author of Attlee: A Life in Politics. He writes the Labour history column for Progress and tweets @NThomasSymonds
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Photo: National Assembly for Wales