May I say at the outset that Plaid Cymru will be supporting this Order today to keep the legislation in effect? The reason we’re discussing this today is that there is a sunset clause in the original legislation. The reason there was a sunset clause was because it was passed as emergency legislation—we just had experience before Easter of that. It’s slightly ironic in this context because it took 18 months after passing emergency legislation to establish the board that there was such urgency in terms of its requirement. However, having been established, the board, as the Cabinet Secretary has said, has outlined many of the important things underpinning salaries in the agricultural sector.

I think there are three reasons why we should support the continuation of this legislation. First of all, if we gave up the legislation today, we couldn’t return to this legislation in the future, because the Wales Act has changed the situation and we would no longer have the right to legislate in this area. That’s not any reason to hold on to powers over centuries, or we’d still be voting on prohibiting drinking on Sundays if we stuck to that sort of argument, but it is an argument for us to consider as an Assembly, not to give up the powers that we currently hold.

The second reason, of course, is that although the board is operational and although we do have an agricultural sector supported by this legislation, the level of salaries is still lower than the average salary through other sectors in Wales. So there is work to be done in enhancing skills, raising salaries and raising the level of awareness and information within the sector. So, obviously, there is ongoing work to be done in this context.

The third reason, and the final reason, of course, is the fact that this sector is facing one of the greatest challenges imaginable over the next year or two, and that is exiting the European Union. We don’t know, if we’re entirely honest, whether this legislation will be of great benefit as we exit the European Union, but what we do feel strongly is that we shouldn’t add to that process of change within the sector as it faces so many changes and the challenges on the horizon. Therefore, I am in favour of retaining as much consistency as possible within the sector, and that is something that the sector has become well used to, in terms of ensuring that the interventions that will happen as a result of Brexit are kept to a minimum.

There is one aspect of this, however, which does strike me as being a weakness within Government and more generally: the information that we have available about Wales—about the impact of salaries in the agricultural sector, on the comparison between the agricultural sector in Wales and that in England, and the comparisons on a cross-sectoral basis too. What’s described in the papers published by the Government does highlight this lack of information. In supporting the continuation of this legislation, I would ask the Cabinet Secretary whether it would be possible for her to tell us what she has in train in order to improve the way that we gather information and to gather evidence as to how effective this legislation is and how effective the work of the board is too.