Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme

Angela Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. I congratulate the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) on securing this very important debate and on the way she presented her case. As she did so well, there is no need to go through the statistics again on why we need such a scheme. However, I underline the points she made about the need to plan ahead, given the challenges faced by the agricultural sector in particular. We know that labour is still at the heart of agriculture in the UK and we need to consider the issue in terms of other agricultural sectors, not just horticulture, such as livestock and poultry.

I understand the argument from Migration Watch that we need to focus on innovation in industry and that to introduce a seasonal workers scheme would detract from the importance of investing in technology and skilling up the workforce, but I accept the points made by the hon. Lady about the time needed to deliver that kind of step-change in the industry and the difficulties that will be faced. I am confident that the industry will invest and innovate, but as she said, it will take time, and the agricultural sector does not have time when it comes to fulfilling its labour needs in the immediate future and the medium term—because of Brexit. Therefore, although Migration Watch has a point, that is subsumed by the immediacy of the needs faced by the industry.

The hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) made a point about the high levels of employment in some parts of the country—not in all, but in some—that make it genuinely difficult to fulfil the needs of the farming sector. I represent a constituency with farming in the western aspects and unemployment in my constituency is 1.9%. That is perhaps unusual for a Labour constituency, but there is a real challenge for rural areas to fulfil employment needs and it is not always easy for people living in urban areas to travel to the countryside and do that kind of work.

The fact has to be faced that British workers are keen on permanent work and the supply of British workers to work on the land is not what it was. I grew up in an area where every morning women would pile into the Land Rover at the end of the street and go off to work on the land. That no longer happens. My own mother worked on the land in the horticulture sector, on and off over the years when she needed the money. The transitional nature of that work is something that the British workforce nowadays finds difficult to accept and we have to tackle that reality. I know that the National Farmers Union has some ideas on how to tackle that obstacle.

We are where we are and we cannot allow the industry to be damaged by a refusal to face the fact that we need to find labour over the next few years. The impact of Brexit is already being felt by the sector when it comes to labour supply, so I absolutely support the case made by the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent.

The Government have a responsibility seriously to consider the need for a seasonal labour supply scheme for the agricultural sector and to place the need for such a scheme in the context of an overall plan for Brexit. I do not think that we can run away from that argument this morning; it is really important. Agriculture wants certainty from the Government on labour supply over not just the next one or two years but in the medium term; the sector needs certainty on what Brexit is going to look like. It is not just the agricultural sector of course—the financial services sector, manufacturing and every part of our economy need that certainty—but we have to acknowledge that agriculture is very dependent on the European Union for much of its funding and for much of its supply of labour, so it is particularly vulnerable to how the Government respond to Brexit and handle the negotiations for Brexit with Brussels.

Are we going to have a Canada-type deal? Are we going to have Canada-plus? Are we going to have a deal along the lines enjoyed by Norway or Switzerland, or are we going to stay in the single market? The Government need to start answering those questions. Are we going to conclude the negotiations in the two years, once article 50 has been triggered, or are we going to need a transitional deal?

It is not just agriculture that needs certainty. The Country Land and Business Association points out that rural tourism is also very dependent on seasonal labour:

“Tourism Alliance data notes that one in four workers within the tourism sector are non-UK nationals. As such, the decision to leave the EU and the potential to limit the availability of a non-UK workforce will undoubtedly be of significant concern to these businesses.”

The evidence shows that urban tourism can stay open to some extent through the winter, perhaps with more limited opening, but rural tourism tends to close its doors. There is a real challenge here for the Government. We really need some certainty from the Government on what their plan for Brexit is going to look like.

Very good points have been made on the case and need for investment in the farming sector and for security in relation to labour supply if we are to give the agricultural sector—farmers—the confidence to invest. I agree strongly with those points. Certainty is everything in business—agriculture is no different from any other part of the economy in that respect—but the point can be made more strategically. If farmers and other rural businesses are to have the confidence to invest for the long term and to innovate and invest in the technology that enables them to become more profitable in the long term, they need not only the scheme under discussion this morning but a clear sense of the strategic direction being pursued by the Government on Brexit. I hope that the Minister will address that point; farmers up and down the country really want to know where Britain is going on Brexit. It is of huge importance to them and to the farming sector in my constituency and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Immigration (Mr Robert Goodwill)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) for initiating this important and informative debate, and I congratulate her on her elevation to the chairmanship of the all-party parliamentary group for fruit and vegetable farming. She presented her case with her customary eloquence and passion, and I am grateful to her and to all hon. Members who have participated. I assure all hon. Members that I will reflect very carefully on the points that have been raised.

When I was appointed as the Minister for Immigration, I was interviewed by the Home Office staff magazine. One of the questions they asked me was, “If you weren’t a politician, what would you be?” I note in passing, and with relief, that they asked the same question of all of my ministerial colleagues at the Home Office, rather than it being a question solely for myself. I replied, “I’m a farmer, first and foremost. Politics has always been the other thing I do. My family have been on the same farm in north Yorkshire since 1850.” Indeed, I have carried out many of the same jobs as the hon. Member for Angus (Mike Weir); I suspect my father should have been arrested for using child labour, given the age at which I began doing those tasks.

It is important that we consider the issues before us today. I understand the position of the farming community and, every bit as importantly, I absolutely appreciate the importance of food and farming industries as a crucial component of the UK economy and of the fabric of rural Britain. I will just put the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) right on one point before I move on: seasonal workers do not contribute to net migration figures; someone has to be here for more than a year to count towards those. Indeed, the reason the seasonal agricultural workers scheme was closed was not because it was unsuccessful, but because the Government were required under EU law to lift the restrictions on Bulgarian and Romanian nationals, who then had unrestricted access to the labour market.

The issue of how we meet temporary labour needs in the agriculture sector is a long-standing one. In the past, the immigration system made provision for a seasonal agricultural workers scheme, under which overseas workers were admitted to for up to six months to undertake crop harvesting. Those arrangements worked very well indeed. The reason why the seasonal agricultural workers scheme was phased out was because the sector had access to an expanded pool of labour, following successive accessions of eastern European countries to the European Union.

As part of our commitment to reduce net migration, the Government’s consistent position has been not to introduce new migration schemes for non-EU nationals to meet labour needs at lower skill levels. The previous seasonal agricultural workers scheme was phased out on the recommendation of the Migration Advisory Committee at the point at which restrictions on the employment of Bulgarian and Romanian nationals were lifted. While the UK remains a member of the EU, EU nationals continue to enjoy the right of freedom of movement in accordance with the UK’s treaty obligations, and employers in the food and farming sector can continue to recruit EU workers to meet seasonal labour needs.

It is not the Government’s policy to admit non-EU nationals to meet labour needs at lower skill levels. However, I appreciate the concerns that have been raised about whether the present situation is sustainable. I met Minette Batters, the deputy president of the National Farmers Union, and Ali Capper, who is also from the NFU, at the beginning of the month. They raised that very point with me, and I have undertaken to reflect on it carefully. Indeed, at the Conservative party conference in Birmingham, I met the president of the NFU, Meurig Raymond, who also raised that very point.

I know there are concerns that the UK’s impending exit from the EU, or even the fall in the value of sterling, might lead to an immediate shortage of labour as EU workers go home, although the data do not support that so far. The most recent labour market statistics were published by the independent Office for National Statistics earlier this month. They cover the period up to September 2016—after the referendum—and show that the number of EU citizens in the UK labour force was higher in the quarter to September 2016 than it had been a year earlier.

Not only that, but the number of workers from the eight countries of eastern and central Europe that joined the EU in 2004, and from Bulgaria and Romania—the countries most commonly associated with low-skilled labour—are also up year on year. To be precise, there were 129,000 more workers from those countries in the UK in the third quarter of 2016 compared with a year earlier. That does not suggest that there is a major exodus from the United Kingdom although, as I have said, I will continue to monitor the situation carefully.

The Government wish to ensure that any decisions we take on the short-term need for seasonal migration schemes do not pre-empt future decisions about how the immigration system will work post-Brexit. As I am sure hon. Members will understand, there are constraints on what I can say about the future arrangements for EU citizens who want to work in the United Kingdom; the way in which we will control migration post-Brexit is yet to be determined. One of the opportunities of Brexit is that we will be able to control both the numbers of migrants from within the EU and the activities that they undertake when they are here.

[Angela Smith]

Can I read from the Minister’s comments that the Government’s plan, if they are to control and restrict freedom of movement, is to leave the single market?

[Mr Goodwill]

I think that question goes above my pay grade. The Leader of the Opposition will have an opportunity to ask the Prime Minister about that at Prime Minister’s Question Time—presumably once he has finished paying tribute to Fidel Castro.

What I can say is that, in framing those future arrangements, the Government will give careful consideration to the needs of the agricultural sector and, of course, every other part of the UK economy. The Government have made it clear that we will work with sectors of the economy to ensure that the potential impacts of Brexit are understood and taken into account when developing our approach. However, we will also be mindful that, in voting for the UK’s departure from the EU, the British people sent a clear message that gaining more control over the number of people who come here from Europe must be a priority in our negotiations.

There is no doubt that there is a debate to be had about whether workers admitted to the UK to undertake seasonal work on a temporary basis are an immigration issue. For example, they may not, as I have said, count towards the official net immigration statistics produced by the ONS if their stay is less than 12 months. However, they certainly have an impact on the communities where they are located, and they do use public services.

A wider issue is the balance to be struck between short-term fixes and the longer-term sustainability of the sector. The horticultural sector has clearly acquired a profound dependence on migrant labour. A Gangmasters Licensing Authority survey following the closure of the seasonal agricultural workers scheme found that, of the 234 farms that responded, only eight had employed any UK nationals at all to undertake seasonal work. Whether we arrived in that position because UK workers have ceased to be available to growers, or because migrant workers have become more readily available to them—or both—may be an academic point now. However, it is still sensible to ask whether the Government should act to perpetuate that dependence in future.

I will deal briefly with a couple of points raised during the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent asked about those EU citizens who have already settled here. The Prime Minister has made it clear that she wishes to protect the status of people already here. Indeed, the only circumstances in which that would not be possible would be if British citizens’ rights in EU member states were not protected in return.

Points have been made about the reaction following Brexit and potential xenophobia. I am meeting the Romanian ambassador later today and I will make the point that this country still welcomes people to come and work here. Indeed, as long as we remain a member of the European Union, those people are free and welcome to come here and participate in our vibrant, thriving economy.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann) made a point about accommodating seasonal workers. I agree that it is important that we look at accommodation, not only because we need to ensure the welfare of the migrants, but because the lack of rural accommodation is a barrier to the recruitment of UK workers. The working group on seasonal workers in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs continues to look at how increasing the availability of accommodation can be incentivised. Employers can offer some accommodation costs against the national minimum wage. My hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) said that non-EEA seasonal workers coming here temporarily do not impact on the migration figures. I mention in passing that I have two Egremont Russet trees in my orchard and I can attest to the quality of their fruit.

This has been an excellent debate, and I repeat my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent. I will allow her a few moments to sum up before the end of the debate.