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Owen Paterson stunned even hard nosed Tories with his ­heartless plan to make pensioners do gruelling crop picking on the cheap, David Laws revealed.

The Environment Secretary proposed his barmy idea to stunned Cabinet colleagues as a way of cutting eastern European immigration .

Mr Paterson suggested exploiting the elderly by plucking them out of retirement to pick crops for less than the minimum wage.

He told a Cabinet meeting he planned to scrap a scheme that allowed EU migrants to come to the UK to do ­unpopular jobs in the fields.

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.

(Image: PA)

“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.

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“We might arrange to exempt British pensioners from the minimum-wage laws, to allow them to do this work.”

Former Liberal ­Democrat Mr Laws, who revealed the astonishing proposals in a new book, wrote: “Cabinet colleagues, even the more right-wing Tories, listened in stunned silence.” And one Whitehall official “tried, unsuccessfully, to stifle a laugh”.

Critics hit out at Mr Paterson’s idea – proposed amid fears of an influx of Bulgarians and Romanians as laws stopping them working here were about to be lifted.

Lib Dem leader Tim Farron said: “This is Owen Paterson treating pensioners as cheap labour.

“It’s the worst kind of ­reactionary politics and a sad state of affairs that this man graced the Cabinet table.”

Labour MP Jess ­Phillips added: “Shocking revelations like this show just how out of touch the Tories are and how we can never take the protection offered by the minimum wage for granted.

“This is the latest example of a senior Tory trying to undermine the minimum wage, which is there to protect all low- paid workers, young and old.

National Pensioners Convention spokesman Neil Duncan-Jordan said: “Do they call this blue sky thinking or just thinking gone mad?

“It’s a ridiculous suggestion and smacks of desperation. I can’t see many pensioners wanting to work for less than the minimum wage. It shows a lack of understanding of the nature of growing old in the UK.

(Image: Peter Byrne/PA)

“I can’t see that many older people lining up to take on this back-breaking kind of work.”

Jana Baratova, who picked fruit at S&A farm in Hereford before getting a job in the sales department, said the work would not be suited to OAPs.

The Slovakian added: “It’s exhausting. I wouldn’t recommend it as work for old people. It’s difficult, it’s quite physical waking up early in the morning and finishing late.”

Mr Laws exposed Mr Paterson’s 2013 plot in his memoirs Coalition: The Inside Story Of The Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition, which is being serialised in a Sunday newspaper.

(Image: PA)

He made the suggestion at a meeting that was being chaired by then Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, who helped him write the book that lifts the lid on five years as the Tory party’s unlikely bedfellows.

At the time, David Cameron was worried the influx of eastern ­Europeans would make it harder to get ­immigration down to the “tens of ­thousands” ­promised by the Tories.

But Mr Paterson branded Mr Laws’ account as “completely wrong”.

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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 they were opened up to unlimited access 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 1st January 2014, right, so the story was wrong.

(Image: Getty Images)

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

Mr Laws’ revelations about plans to exploit the elderly came as a new study found retirement is good for your health as pensioners have more time to be active and sleep better.

Public Health expert Dr Melody Ding of Sydney University, said research found OAPs did an hour and half more exercise a week than those who work.

She said: “Retirement is a good time to make positive lifestyle changes that could add years to their life.”