Back British Farming Day

Debate between Derek Thomas and Caroline Nokes

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Derek Thomas]

I welcome that intervention, but that is a slightly different issue because that work is—it is often 12-month work, and the resettlement status and various other things can help with that.

I talk unapologetically about the need in Cornwall, but we need people to be able to come and harvest the crops, which as my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth mentioned includes daffodils. The Home Office can help farmers by agreeing to our demands to continue access to seasonable agricultural workers next year and by addressing the urgent need facing Cornish MPs, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth, the DEFRA Secretary—it might be awkward for him—and myself. The truth is that we will be driving to London next January, February and March staring at fields covered in beautiful yellow flowers. I appreciate the view, as will anyone who comes to Cornwall on holiday, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth said, £100 million-worth of daffodils are picked in Cornwall—we provide 86% and the UK provides 95% of the world’s daffodils—and to see those flowers sitting in the fields for us to enjoy is not fair on those in London and elsewhere who should also be enjoying them. It is also not fair on HMRC.

There is an urgent need to secure a workforce to harvest our daffodils. SAWS is limited, as we know, to edible crops. My ask, and that of my colleagues and Cornish daffodil growers, who produce almost 80% of the nation’s daffodils, is to simply extend the SAWS pilot to include daffodils. That would extend the visa to nine months, rather than six, to cover January to April and would include the harvesting of non-edible crops. If the Home Office is really concerned, it could just specify daffodils. We would be happy with that.

I have not heard any local dissent regarding the fact that citizens from overseas work in west Cornwall and on Scilly. If the Home Office is concerned about immigration numbers—I do not believe that this is not immigration, but seasonal agricultural work to meet a demand—the scheme to keep the 30,000 workers for nine months would suit its desire. This year we needed a further 1,000 daffodil pickers. The Home Office believes that a workforce is here in the UK, but my daffodil producers tested that. They increased pay, advertised widely and locally, and increased the hours available to work. Despite that, we lost 20% of our daffodils, and 274 million stems were left in the ground.

This is an urgent issue. I have spoken to the Prime Minister, the Chief Whip, DEFRA, a Home Office Minister and the Home Secretary about it. When I spoke to the Home Office Minister, he said that we need to demonstrate that the work is not poorly paid with poor accommodation. In fact, the producers increased the money to attract the pickers. The average hourly wage was £12.08. Some were earning £1,000 a week, and each year the accommodation is inspected by the migrant workers officer. Daffodil growers have rightly improved pay and conditions because they know they will lose their pickers to perhaps much more enjoyable work such as—dare I say it?—strawberry picking. It is amazing that strawberries in the sunshine are being left in the ground when it is so much easier to pick a strawberry than a daffodil.

I will leave it there, but this is a devastatingly important issue. I will finish with a quote from Churchill for the Home Office to hear. At the height of the second world war when ornamentals were not allowed to be picked, he said:

“These people must be enabled to grow their flowers and send them to London— they cheer us up…in these dark days”.

Let us do what we can to protect an industry that does so much to cheer up the nation.

[Caroline Nokes (in the Chair)]

I still intend to call the Front-Benchers from 10.28 am. Danny Kruger is next.