Asked by: Graham Allen (Labour - Nottingham North)
Question to the Department for Exiting the European Union :
To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, with reference to his speech in Tallinn of 21 February 2017, what steps the Government plans to take to promote jobs in the hospitality and agricultural industries to British citizens for fill potential vacancies after the UK leaves the EU.
Answered by Robin Walker
Supporting our food and farming industries and protecting the environment will form an important part of our exit from the EU. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will be engaging with industry to inform their initial thinking as part of the wider stakeholder engagement to help shape future agriculture and land use policy, as well as our 25 year Food and Farming Plan.
In addition, tourism and hospitality are a vital part of our economy. In 2015 foreign visitors contributed £22bn to our economy and the industry as a whole supports some 1.6 million jobs. Since the referendum result, Government has met a range of representatives from the hospitality industry. We are confident our exit presents opportunities for growth in hospitality and we will work closely with the industry to realise these.
As we conduct our negotiations, it must be a priority to regain more control of the numbers of people who come here from Europe. We are considering very carefully the options that are open to us for our future immigration system. As part of that it is important that we understand the impacts on the different sectors of the economy and the labour market from any changes that we make.