Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme

Debate between Matt Warman and Alex Norris

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Alex Norris]

The hon. Gentleman gives an example of something else that we should seek to build on. We should not think that the fears that I am raising apply across the industry to all employers—far from it—but where it does happen, it is exceptionally serious and we should want to tackle it. The scheme that ran until 2013 would cost workers often more than £10,000 for their jobs. Overcoming that challenge is a matter for the state and not just about good commissioning or contracting.

The Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority will play a very important role. As colleagues have highlighted, the GLAA has 123 members of staff in the entire country, who are tasked with licensing gangmasters in agriculture, horticulture and shellfish gathering. They oversee the entire labour market to protect workers from modern slavery. Those 123 people must be very talented. There is no proposal to increase the number of staff as part of SAWS. They will be expected to license and monitor overseas labour agents from anywhere outside the EU. How are they likely to be able to do that? I hope the Minister will address that in his reply.

Under the previous iteration of SAWS, workers reported utter deprivation due to low hours, bad weather affecting their work, and being paid less than the minimum wage and being unable to afford to fly home. That situation cannot be repeated, because workers in the scheme rely on their employer for all their necessities: accommodation, transportation, food and information. They will not have access to public funds. People may face a choice between remaining in an abusive situation and becoming destitute. None of us would want to be in that situation. The Government need to ensure that individuals who enter the scheme will have access to support to leave their situation if they are being exploited.

Debt bondage and entrapped workers are the two risks that I am most concerned about, but there are other issues, too. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) said that, because migrant workers by definition are here for a short time, they are less likely to know their immigration and employment rights. Therefore, they are less likely to be able to identify abuses. We will all have heard extraordinary stories of car washes, where individuals who are liberated from their slavery find out that the minimum wage is three or four times what they are paid. They did know they were being exploited; they just thought that was what happened. The only information they had access to led them to think that was the case.

We should draw on the trade union movement. I thank Unite for its support in preparing this speech; it has proposed a series of things to work well alongside the scheme to help to organise these workers. I hope the Minister will look at that. Not speaking English puts people at risk of abuse, and those who are not here for long are not likely to develop language skills. Let us make sure that rights advice and support is available in the UK beyond the current limited multilingual support.

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

Very often, the people who abuse workers are from the workers’ own communities. This is as much about ensuring that police have access in the ways the hon. Gentleman describes, as it is about talking to those communities.

[Alex Norris]

Slavery operations are incredibly sophisticated, while also being simple: people from the same place who speak the same language take a person from home and exploit them, cutting out all the other links in the chain, so that they do not know that they are in an exploitative situation. As constituency MPs, we all know that our labour inspection regime in this country is predominantly reactive and relies on workers’ complaints. How would a catchment of workers who have not identified their own abuse be able to say that is the case? We ought to be mindful of that.

I have laid out a number of real challenges in the scheme that none of us would design legislation to support—quite the opposite. We know that after we leave the European Union we will face a defining moment for our country, when we decide where we want to be. We have heard a lot in the Chamber in recent weeks about being a high-standards country, especially when it comes to workers’ rights. Now is a good time for that. I want that for my constituents, neighbours, friends and family. I also want that for the people who come here and make sure we have food on our table. Those high standards must apply to them, too. We cannot use strong language in this place while allowing gaps in our system where abuse prevails.

I am pleased that, through my engagement with the Home Affairs Committee, I have received a commitment from the Home Secretary that slavery will be given due regard as part of the evaluation of the pilot. I would like to know what that looks like, when we will start to understand that and what Ministers will be doing about the agents used as intermediary third parties. The breadth of contributions from Members from every corner of the UK shows the strength of feeling. I hope that we can work collectively to get this right.