Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. It is partly because of the success of our economy that we have so much going on and that we need this labour. My constituency has the same situation as his, with very low unemployment. I do not have as much vegetable growing, but I have meat and poultry processing, which are almost entirely done by central and eastern European labour, and that is an issue. We want to ensure that we can find as much home-grown labour as we can, but we have also got to have accessibility to labour from Europe and, in the future, probably from beyond Europe.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. He allows me to segue neatly on to an issue that does not just affect agriculture. We have labour from beyond Europe in fishing. There are fishing boats on the west coast of Scotland and in Northern Ireland that are tied up at the moment due to a lack of people. One boat alone has lost £100,000 in uncaught fish. People are willing to come back from the Philippines to the boats they used to work on. The Scottish community is one thing—everyone says yes in the Philippines and Scotland—but if one man in London says no, we cannot get the people in. The Immigration Minister has a big role to play here.

[Neil Parish]

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point on fishing. As we leave the European Union, there should be greater opportunities for fishing and catches, but we need the labour to do that. Going out to fish is not always seen as the nicest job in the world. We have probably got to look not only at labour availability in the long term, but the types of fishing boats we are using and everything. There is a lot to be done, but we need labour.

This April, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee published a report on labour constraints in agriculture. We came to a clear conclusion: the sheer weight of evidence from a range of farming and horticulture businesses was that they have big problems in retaining labour. We did not necessarily share the Government’s confidence that the agriculture sector does not have a problem. Some of the figures that the Home Office Minister provided were perhaps six or nine months out of date, and the situation is getting tighter all the time. Simply put, the challenge will become a crisis if the Government do not swiftly take measures. The challenge will only become more acute after Brexit, when the free movement of workers ends.

A strategy is urgently needed to ensure that British agriculture has the workers it needs in the short to medium term. Many people ask why British people cannot do the jobs. We all agree we want to see more British workers in the industry in the long term. It is not sustainable to rely on almost exclusively foreign labour for seasonal jobs. We need to think about a long-term shift now. Unemployment is now at 4.6% nationally. As my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) said, in many constituencies it is much lower. In fact, it is at its lowest since 1995.

In many constituencies we are reaching almost full employment; it could be said we are a victim of our great success. The truth is there are not necessarily enough workers who are able and want to do the jobs. In my own constituency in Devon where agriculture is a key part of the local economy, there simply is not the demand for such seasonal labour among local people, so foreign labour must play a part.

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[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) for securing this debate. As he said, it is very timely. I congratulate him also on his work on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.

I begin by pointing out to the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) a couple of macro facts. There was a vote of 17.4 million last year to leave. I know his party do not like it, but we are going to leave. One of the issues was taking back control of our borders. The figures are pretty startling. Last week, our population hit a record number of 65.5 million. The Department for Communities and Local Government reckons that we need to provide housing for 243,000 new households every year for the next 22 years, which means building a new home every five minutes, night and day, to cope with the increase in population. That is one macro fact that Members have to recognise.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Paterson]

I will just finish making the point, because I think it is relevant.

The other fact is that, far from banging on about Brexit, it is great pleasure to state that the economies in eastern Europe are really flying. Hungary is growing at about 4% and there has been a huge increase in wages. They have risen by 15% this year, and by 25% for skilled workers, and there has been a 20% rise in the Hungarian forint. Quite soon, there will not be wage differentials between Hungarian workers and western European workers.

There are similar major strategic changes in Poland. The economy there is flying, at 4% a year. Significantly, a 250,000 annual drop in the working-age population is putting pressure on Poland, which is already opening up visa schemes for 1.3 million temporary workers from Ukraine. We have to recognise that. It is great news that in Romania, which is very relevant to our discussions, economic growth is running at 5%. Civil servants have had a 25% pay rise. Their wages are increasing and their jobless rate is not far below Scandinavian levels. Those macro elements are completely out of the discussion on Brexit.

Where I would agree with the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire is that the situation is a real problem. I saw it coming when I worked in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and it has only got worse. The hon. Gentleman cited a survey from British Summer Fruits. It sees prices rising 35% to 50% because of labour shortages. The BBC did a survey that said that 78% of growers believed that recruitment has been harder. We are all hearing this, and it is not just in the fruit and veg industry; we are hearing it from those who work in abattoirs and those who work in tourism. Many rural industries are being affected.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about “taking back control”. He must have sympathy with the point I raised earlier: in Scotland we do not have control, because we have a system that is very centralised in London, deciding what we need and do not need, particularly if we want to take people from the Philippines. Switzerland, for example, can run a scheme where the 26 cantons control half the visas and the other half are controlled centrally. Is it not time that the UK changed its approach so that places such as Scotland can control their own destiny?

[Mr Paterson]

The hon. Gentleman’s party lost the argument when it lost the referendum. Scotland is a firm part of the UK. I think the control of borders is a policy area that should be in the hands of the nation state.

To get back to my not being surprised, the most angry people I met when I was the Secretary of State at DEFRA were the fruit farmers in Herefordshire, Somerset or Kent. I remember clearly going on a trip with my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) to her constituency in Essex, where there is a wonderful, world-famous fruit packing, picking and jam-making company called Tiptree, which we probably all see on virtually every plane we fly on. That company was having real problems at that time with getting really skilled people to pick fruit. As the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire said, the picking has to be done at the right moment. There is a critical moment when fruit and veg has to be picked, or it is lost.

At that time, SAWS had already been stopped. From memory, before they had open access, the scheme brought in 21,250 Romanians and Bulgarians, who came to targeted destinations, with proper accommodation, good catering facilities, proper medical facilities and so on. They also had the requirement to go home at the end of the season. I remember that Tiptree was really struggling. I talked to various representatives of the industries at that time and we looked at all sorts of alternatives, some of which have been completely misrepresented in the press. There was talk of reviving the old tradition of urban citizens taking working holidays in the countryside, and seeing whether pensioners could do it. We looked at students. I worked closely with the Department for Work and Pensions. None of those options was really practical. We looked at them, but they were not really going anywhere.

The only real long-term solution, if we are to use domestic labour—the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire made the right point when he said we all represent rural constituencies with very low rates of unemployment—is automation. Happily, near me, we have the University of Harper Adams, which is doing fantastic work on automated machinery. It will produce a crop in a field this year where a human being will not have entered that field from the moment that it was first touched. However, that is down the line. For the moment, I think we all agree that we have a real problem with our fruit and veg industry, and increasingly with our tourism industry, in finding labour.

We have the opportunity, and I look forward to it, once we get control back of our borders, to look well outside Europe for labour—we will have to. We are going to find—I have just cited the figures—that the Romanians and the Poles are probably going to stay at home. We had better wake up to that. It is absolutely vital that the Minister is working hard at DEFRA on a replacement seasonal agricultural workers scheme.

I would ask him not to do a straight replacement. I will cite one example, New Zealand, which has been running a recognised seasonal employers scheme since 2007. The World Bank has described it as a model for best practice. It has really worked; it has eased labour shortages in the horticulture sector, and the viticulture sector, which is growing very fast of course in New Zealand, while minimising the risks of overstaying and undercutting or displacement of local labour by immigrant labour.

There is a really strong focus in New Zealand on “New Zealand first” in the labour market. Our old seasonal agricultural workers scheme did not incorporate a resident labour market test, unlike the RSE, nor did it include measures of the type included in the RSE to prevent illegal overstaying. That is a really important difference. The number has increased from 8,000 to 10,800 Pacific islanders this year. They are provided places to work during the agricultural season, and mainly come from islands such as Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Tuvalu and Vanuatu, for seven to 11 months.

The conditions are pretty strict. An employer must first register as a recognised seasonal employer. That is stronger than what we had: under our old legislation, SAWS, registration with the Gangmasters Licensing Authority was optional for sole operators and compulsory only for multiple operators, depending on their recruitment arrangements.

New Zealand employers are required to take a number of reasonable steps to recruit New Zealanders to available positions. The language is pretty fierce. The main document given to employers says that they are required to take

“all reasonable steps to recruit and train New Zealanders for available positions before seeking to recruit non-New Zealand citizen or resident workers”,

and that they must

“not use a recruitment agent who seeks a commission from workers in exchange for securing an employment agreement, to recruit non-New Zealand citizen or resident workers”.

That is much more strict and puts more pressure on the employer than what we had.

The other really important thing is that employers are required to pay the market rate for work so there is no competition with domestic labour. “New Zealand first” really does help. Under the SAWS arrangements, SAWS operators were subject to inspection by the GLA and what was then the UK Border Agency. That included their pay systems. In New Zealand, farms are inspected, mainly by the operator, to ensure appropriate standards of health and safety, which is the main focus. Very importantly, employers must pay half the worker’s return air fare between New Zealand and their country of origin. Under SAWS, there was no requirement to pay any portion of the worker’s return air fare.

In New Zealand, employers must bear the cost of repatriating workers if they become illegal. Again, that was not the case under SAWS, although fines were eventually introduced. Importantly, workers under RSE are allowed to be re-employed in subsequent years, and there is a very strong record of their coming back, which I think is a real advantage for the disadvantaged economies from which they come. Although seasonal agricultural schemes around the world seem to use either a resident labour market test as a form of flow control, or a quota, New Zealand uses both. The policy has contributed very much to its development objectives with its Pacific neighbours.

I recommend that the Minister read the report by Professor Alan Winters, professor of economics at the University of Sussex, on New Zealand’s recognised seasonal employers scheme. Let me pick a key quote from a 2010 survey by the New Zealand Department of Labour, which is pretty festive about this. It said:

“Overall, the RSE Policy has achieved what it set out to do. The policy has provided employers in the horticulture and viticulture industries with access to a reliable and stable seasonal workforce. The labour supply crises of previous years have been avoided and employers can now plan and manage their businesses with confidence. As the policy enters its third year”—

this was back in 2010—

“there are indications many employers are now also benefiting from skilled labour as workers return for subsequent seasons. Significant productivity gains were reported in the second season, together with improvements in harvest quality.”

As I just said,

“Alongside the employer ‘wins’, Pacific workers and three Pacific states have benefited financially from participating in the RSE Policy.”

A World Bank report said:

“We find per capita incomes of households participating in the RSE to have increased by over 30% relative to the comparison groups in both countries.”

Another report found that 50% of workers returned in the next season, and that most—86.9%—returned to the same employer.

Australia’s seasonal worker programme, which I strongly recommend the Minister check out, is a similar scheme. It brings in 12,000 workers from Pacific islands. Workers come to Australia for between 14 weeks and six months. Employers must be approved by the Government; provide the Government with evidence of labour market testing; organise flights, transport and accommodation for workers; ensure a minimum of 30 hours of labour a week; and ensure that workers depart on the expiration of their visa.

It is vital that we look at introducing a replacement for SAWS. It should be tapered and temporary, and should ensure that British workers are not displaced or undercut by migrant workers while we wait for technology to catch up—that is the real future for domestic workers. Any replacement of SAWS must include a resident labour market test and be accompanied by robust safeguards against illegal overstaying. We need to start planning that now because, given that prosperity is improving in eastern Europe, as Members have said, workers are not going to come from there. We will happily have the whole world to choose from. Hopefully, people will come here and pick our wonderful soft fruit and vegetables.

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[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

I am pleased to wind up the debate on behalf of the Scottish National party. It has been a good debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) on securing it.

We know a seasonal agricultural workers scheme is important and necessary, and the feeling from all sides of the House is that it is a no-brainer. There is complete agreement across all regions and nations of the United Kingdom that it has to come into being. In many ways, this will probably be the first of many Brexit damage-reduction measures that we will debate in the next few years. As the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton said, there is not yet a crisis, but it is quite clear that acute pains are being felt, and that a seasonal agricultural workers scheme is essential.

My hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) effortlessly ranged in his speech from soft fruit to soft power, and he was absolutely certain that his constituency produces the best berries in the United Kingdom. I am pretty sure it produces the best berries in Scotland, which probably makes them the best berries in all of Europe; let us not constrain ourselves to the white cliffs of Dover, let us look internationally. He made a very good point about the changing nature of the berry-farming industry, with the planting, maintaining and harvesting of the fruits all having changed, and with polytunnels enabling him to enjoy those fine raspberries and strawberries before Easter and well beyond Halloween. He is lucky to represent such a fine area.

The hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) echoed my hon. Friend’s point about prices rising by up to 50%. That will affect an awful lot of people. There are concerns among many of the large retailers, such as Sainsbury’s, that the average shopping basket will rise in price by about 7%, even excluding changes in currency. Soft fruits are healthy foods that people should be eating. People are asked to eat them for their health in Finland, as they seem to have the effect of reducing heart attacks and other such problems. For them to become more expensive is surely not to the benefit of our society as a whole, and is certainly not to the benefit of the farmers.

Keeping with the “north” theme, I obviously disagreed with the right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) on his points about Scotland, because Scotland has voted twice to stay in the European Union, but I agreed with him on much else. He pointed out that we have certainly seen an improving economy in eastern Europe, which will be significant. Mechanisation will have to come along at some point; it is certainly happening in fishing industries. Anybody who has been to Iceland will have seen that what was once done on fishing boats by man is now done by machines. The population of Iceland working in fisheries was once 25% but is now 4.3%. Mechanisation is always the way ahead.

The right hon. Gentleman also touched on conditions for workers, which was also mentioned by the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent. These are experienced and skilled workers who we must value. I expect that, under any scheme, those workers would have access to whichever of the four national health services they might need to access across the United Kingdom. He also very informatively touched on the recognised seasonal employer scheme in New Zealand. I googled it as he spoke, and found a good article on it. The news hot from New Zealand is that the scheme will be expanded to cover tourism and fisheries, which is very welcome news. I certainly hope that it will be considered for our fisheries industry, because we definitely need people in that industry. We cannot have the obstinacy we have had from the Home Office, which is terrified of stupid headlines in the Daily Mail about migrants, which has led to fishing boats being tied and not catching fish—affecting processing jobs on land in my constituency.

The New Zealanders are very much aware that the scheme is a win-win situation. They take workers mainly from Pacific countries and they fully realise that much of the money that those workers earn will go back to their home countries, which will help people to develop and advance there. New Zealand also wants those workers to come back, because they have become experienced workers over time, as the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent also mentioned.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) also mentioned that Northern Ireland shared Scotland’s and England’s view on this. It is vital that that is recognised. Keeping with the “north” theme as ever, the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) gave a good speech on the amount of workers that come into his constituency, which again shows just how important and big an issue this is. The hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent touched on an important point about the welcome that people get when they come here. They are experienced workers. We should abhor the very idea of hate crime against them, and fight against it happening or being encouraged—even derogatory talk about migrants should be stopped. In Scotland, happily, we have seen a fall in hate crime since the Brexit referendum of June last year.

The UK Government, by pursuing a narrow-minded approach, are making decisions on migration that are detrimental to Scotland. I hope that in this first Brexit damage-reduction measure we will see something useful and helpful. I do not see why the UK, in contrast to countries such as Switzerland, has to have a centralised policy—in Scotland, we have very different demographics from the rest of the UK.

About 14,000 non-UK seasonal workers come back and forth to Scotland, most of them employed in the soft fruit and vegetable sectors in the summer and autumn. That underpins our £14 billion food and drink industry, which is one of the fastest growing and most successful sectors in Scotland. We know what we need to do for Scotland; it is terrible—frustrating—for us to have to inform and often educate a UK Minister that something beneficial to Scotland might also be beneficial to the Exchequer, with the taxes and revenues of increased economic activity.

One of the benefits that I had not seen or thought of much before was touched on by my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), which is the cultural benefits naturally and normally brought about by such exchanges of people. When we talk about things like this, we sometimes think in economic tramlines, instead of about the human beings involved and the welcome cultural exchanges.

To round up, the need for a scheme is absolutely pressing. The Minister must act and the Home Office must be welcoming of such a scheme—we can have no obstruction from them. We have to widen it out to other sectors such as tourism and, certainly, fisheries. It is something that makes total sense and has been a no-brainer as far as this debate is concerned. All participants have been supportive of it, and I look forward to seeing such a scheme in the near future.