" This procedure has been a vital part of ensuring access to justice for victims of discrimination since our first discrimination and race relations Acts were passed nearly 40 years ago ," the Baroness noted .
The removal of the right to obtain information in discrimination cases appears to be an ideologically driven , and wholly unfair , way of restricting access to justice to those who can afford it .
Abolition of Agricultural Wages Boards
Changes
Two days before Christmas 2012 , the government added their policy to abolish the Agricultural Wages Boards ( AWBs ) in England and Wales as an amendment to the ERR BIll without any prior warning . By removing the Agricultural Wages Boards , the Agricultural Minimum Wage and the sector ' s wage structure will also be abolished .
Criticism
The Coalition has argued that the AWBs are old-fashioned and no longer relevant , since the National Minimum Wage now covers all workers . However , the agricultural sector comprises of many casualised and vulnerable workers - such as seasonal and migrant labour - who benefit from a set wages structure , which protects them against the downward pressure on their salaries by rich supermarkets looking for evercheaper food to turn a larger profit .
There is also evidence that farmers prefer having the AWBs in place , as it relieves them from the responsibility to negotiate complex employment legislation in order to build new wage structures . Several Lords in a peer ' s debate noted that many farmers prefer the simplicity of paying their workers according to a structure that is already laid out for them .
Although the government has argued agricultural workers will not be impacted by the change , because they tend to be paid more than the Agricultural Minimum Wage anyway , there are worries that this is a poor assumption on ministers ' behalf .
Firstly , the Coalition contradict their own argument in their impact assessments , where potential " savings " are outlined . It has been estimated that £ 250 million will be lost from the pockets of workers , according to Lord Whitty in a Lords debate , implying workers will in fact be hit - and hard .
Although many agricultural workers are often paid more than the Agricultural Minimum Wage , this is partly due to the wages structure that is in place - which recommends what farmers should pay different workers on their site . When the AWBs go , so will this structure , and Lord Whitty argued its loss will lead to downwards pressure on agricultural wages to the minimum possible .
What ' s more , that £ 250 million is unlikely to even go to the farmers . With rich supermarkets constantly applying pressure on their suppliers to produce more for
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