A Conservative cabinet minister suggested getting pensioners to pick fruit and vegetables below the minimum wage instead of hiring Bulgarians and Romanians at the legal rate, a former Lib Dem coalition colleague has claimed.

David Laws, who lost his seat at last year’s general election, revealed the episode in a new book about his days in government, saying the plan was hatched by Owen Paterson, the then environment secretary. The account is disputed by Paterson but Laws alleges that his former Tory colleague came up with the idea after proposing to end a scheme bringing over migrants from Bulgaria and Romania to work in the fields of British farmers.

In his book, serialised in the Mail on Sunday, Laws says: “When a colleague suggested the move would be unpopular with farmers, who would no longer find it easy to employ cheap labour for the back-breaking work, defiant Mr Paterson replied: ‘Oh, but I’ve thought of that, I think I have the answer. We’ll try to get more British pensioners picking some of the fruit and vegetables in the fields instead. Of course, getting pensioners to do this work could lead to an increase in farmers’ costs. After all, they may be a bit slower doing the work. I’ve thought of that too. We might arrange to exempt British pensioners from the minimum-wage laws, to allow them to do this work.’”

Laws added: “Cabinet colleagues, even the more rightwing Tories, listened in stunned silence.”

Paterson rejected Laws’ version of events when asked about the episode by the Mirror. He said: “There is a very good scheme called the seasonal agricultural workers scheme which is wrongly described for a start in the Laws piece, which brought in a very targeted number – 20,250 ­Romanians and Bulgarians – before [all work restrictions on migrants from the two countries were lifted on 1 January 2014] and it worked really well.

“They came to targeted spots, had proper accommodation and good catering but they went back at the end of the season and I was very keen to keep it on.

“We looked at all sorts of options of how we could substitute them once there was open season from the 1 January 2014, right, so the story was wrong.



“There might be other stories that are wrong in that long, long piece.”