THE organisation which protects the wages of thousands of farm workers across North and East Yorkshire could be abolished today.

The Agricultural Wages Board (AWB) was set up to ensure fair pay levels for 152,000 fruit pickers and farm workers in England and Wales, which includes 6,190 in North Yorkshire. Critics have said rural areas, including Selby and Ainsty, would be among the hardest hit.

The AWB ensures those on the first grade of agricultural work earn 2p more than the national minimum wage, controls overtime and night rates for farm workers, and ensures children under 16 working weekend or summer jobs earn £3.05 an hour.

But the board will be abolished if the Government’s proposed Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill gets through the House of Lords in its present form, a week after it passed through the House of Commons.

Today, MPs will debate the abolition of the AWB, and call for changes to the Bill, which the Government’s impact assessment said will take £260 million of lost holiday and sick pay out of the rural economy over ten years.

Mary Creagh MP, Shadow Environment Secretary, will tell the house the abolition of the board “will lead to lower wages for farm workers and take £260 million out of village high streets over ten years.

“Abolition will lead to a race to the bottom in rural wages, hitting living standards and increasing social deprivation.”

She said: “David Cameron’s out-of-touch Government has delivered a bitter blow to the rural economy and to thousands of low-paid farm workers, who will be worried about their pay falling.”