Clause I. — (Holidays.)

Part of Holidays with Pay Bill. – in the House of Commons at on 19 July 1938.

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Photo of Mrs Mavis Tate Mrs Mavis Tate , Frome

I agree with much of what the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) has said. I fully appreciate that the Minister wishes this Bill to go forward in a spirit of amity, but I believe that the National Farmers' Union, in asking for a differentiation between the agricultural and the industrial worker, are doing something that will be exceedingly detrimental to themselves. It is already almost impossible to get agricultural labourers, and I believe that whether or not you can make agreements outside the Bill for a seven days' and not merely a three days' holiday, the mistake will go forward if you allow differentiation in this Bill. The agreements that may be come to outside afterwards will not have the same value, and they will never undo the harm that is being done when you once make this differentiation in the Bill. I think it is a shortsighted policy on the part of the National Farmers' Union. To-day we all realise that their difficulties are almost insuperable and that they find it almost impossible to get labour at all, and I hope that in future the hon. Member who has just sat down, and his party, will be able to support wholeheartedly the Measures which the National Government may bring forward for helping agriculture and for helping farmers to pay better wages and give better conditions. Up to date they have opposed every one of those Measures, but in future perhaps we shall see a change of heart, which is very much overdue.

I believe that you have to put all workers on the same level and that this is a mistaken policy, and I beg of the Minister, who, I am sure, has the interests of the agricultural worker completely at heart, that he should consult with the National Farmers' Union and see whether they cannot themselves come to the conclusion that this differentiation will be a disadvantage to the agricultural worker as well as to themselves. The hon. and gallant Member for Cambridgeshire (Captain Briscoe) said that many agricultural workers preferred to take their holidays in two parts.