Inshore Industry Fishing Crews: Visas
Debate between Anthony Mangnall and Robert Jenrick(11 months, 1 week ago)
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Robert Jenrick
I was coming to that point. I was not going to conclude my remarks without addressing it properly.
Anthony Mangnall
I apologise to the hon. Member for Strangford for jumping in on the back of his question. The funds are welcome, but I urge the Minister to do all he can to encourage DEFRA to see that access to them is made as easy as possible. I am concerned that in my patch, we repeatedly fail to apply for the funds. There are certain levels of complexity that I do not think are necessary when we are trying to help the industry. It is becoming quite cumbersome, so perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister will relay that to his counterpart.
Robert Jenrick
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that ask, and I will certainly relay the feedback to the Secretary of State for DEFRA.
I will turn to the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, and then I will come to the ask of the hon. Member for Strangford. As the Home Secretary set out in her letter to the industry, although it is a long-standing Government policy that overseas workers in UK waters needed visas, we accepted that there was a need to legislate for clarity. The fishing sector has been using transit visas erroneously, in our view, for a number of years without consequence, and it was vital to correct that given the labour abuse that we saw in some parts of the sector.
Foreign nationals coming to work in the UK, on land or on our waters, should comply with the immigration system. That includes the firms that are looking to hire those workers. I do not believe that is controversial, and the fishing industry is no exception. None the less, as a result of the clarification there is a transition that needs to be managed, as right hon. and hon. Members have said today.