Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme

Helen Whately Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the seasonal agricultural workers scheme.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. It is also a pleasure to see other colleagues here today, including members of the new all-party group for fruit and vegetable farming, of which I am the chair. I am grateful for the opportunity to raise British growers’ concerns about recruiting workers in the coming years. I will focus my comments on the fruit and vegetable industry, but I emphasise that a flexible, seasonal workforce is vital for other parts of the food and farming industry, such as sheep and poultry farming. The industry as a whole is worth more than £100 billion to the nation’s economy. Within that, horticulture is worth £3 billion. Fruit and vegetable farmers have a vital role to play in making us all healthier.

As the Minister knows, I represent the beautiful constituency of Faversham and Mid Kent in the heart of the garden of England. When I drive from Headcorn on one side of my constituency to Faversham and the surrounding villages on the other, I see fields full of great British fruit. Depending on the season, there are strawberries, raspberries, blackcurrants, apples, pears, cherries and plums. Apart from growing healthy local food, fruit and vegetable farmers are part of the fabric of rural life. British growers employ thousands of people across the food and drink sector, look after the environment and contribute to the local and national economy, but they are facing tough times. They are worried about the speed of the introduction of the national living wage, face uncertainty over our future relationship with Europe and struggle with falling farm-gate prices and declining profitability. While recent yields have been good and the volume of strawberries sold in the UK has increased dramatically, around half of fruit farms are making less than a 2% margin and fruit farmers’ incomes have fallen by 43% over the past five years.

From speaking to local farmers, I know that opinions were split over Brexit, but one thing that all growers are worried about is access to labour, particularly since our decision to leave the European Union. The horticulture industry needs thousands of seasonal workers every year to pick and pack their produce. The British Growers Association estimates that the horticulture industry employed 80,000 seasonal workers this year and forecasts that that need will increase to 95,000 by 2019. The vast majority of those seasonal workers come from the European Union, and they do demanding work hand-picking fruit and packing it into punnets with care and speed. We should put on record the fact that we welcome those seasonal workers to Britain and are grateful for their contribution to our economy. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] It is getting harder for farmers to recruit seasonal workers. The National Farmers Union’s end of season labour survey found that in 2015, nearly a third of growers had experienced problems recruiting workers. Some 69% of growers expect the situation to get worse by 2018.

[Sir Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

I, too, represent an area with a large number of horticulture businesses, including fruit farms, soft fruit and glasshouses. We have a big food production sector, too. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need action immediately? The old seasonal agricultural workers scheme worked extremely well before 2013. We need a trial scheme to be brought in as soon as possible.

[Helen Whately]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend about the need to bring something in soon. My farmers are asking for a new scheme to be trialled as of next year because of the problems they are already experiencing in recruiting workers for next year, but I will come on to that point.

Organisations that recruit seasonal workers, such as AG Recruitment in my constituency, have told me that there are four times fewer people looking for jobs than last year. The NFU surveyed seasonal worker recruitment companies, and nearly half said that between July and September 2016 they were unable to meet the demands of the sectors they were supplying. That compares with nearly 100% being able to recruit enough workers in January, February and March this year. One farmer in my constituency, Tim Chambers, has told me that normally he would expect around 80% of his workers to ask for a place next season as they leave. So far this year, it has been only 50%. David Figgis, another local farmer, says that compared with last year the number of seasonal workers he has been able to recruit to start in the new year has halved. There is already a problem recruiting workers, before we have even left the European Union.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the excellent speech she is making. It chimes exactly with what I am hearing from growers in my patch. May I add that seasonal workers exactly fit the Government’s immigration policy, because the controlled environment that growers and farmers provide ensures that these are people who come and go, having done an excellent job in between?

[Helen Whately]

My hon. Friend is completely right about that, and I will come on to that point. Under the previous scheme, we know that the vast majority of seasonal workers went home after working. It is not a question of immigration.

Coming back to the current problem of recruiting workers, one issue is that the falling pound means that wages sent home are worth less than before. It is a fact that EU workers are feeling a lot less welcome, and many of these workers have a choice as to where they work. They do not have to come and work in the UK; they are in demand across the whole European Union. Another farmer in my constituency, Simon Elworthy, has told me that there is a genuine risk of British fruit going unpicked next year because of a shortage of labour.

[Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)]

Like other Members, this issue affects parts of my constituency. The west Lancashire part grows a lot of vegetables. Will my hon. Friend note that when we met the NFU, it said that it was not just the UK that was reliant on migrant labour? We need to put paid to that myth that all the workers could be UK-grown—all OECD countries are reliant on labour from outside their borders to pick fruit and vegetables.

[Helen Whately]

My hon. Friend is completely right about other OECD nations. I will mention other countries that have seasonal agricultural workers schemes for exactly that reason in a moment.

Another point that has been made by several of my local farmers is that because of the shortage of labour, there is a risk that British fruit farmers may go out of business. I mentioned how tight their margins are, but if we add to that an inability to pick all the produce because of a labour shortage, they will struggle to stay in business. One consequence is that we will probably see the cost of British fruit go up. That will happen just at the point when we want to improve our balance of trade. Fruit is a sector where I would argue we are among the best—and perhaps are the best—in the world. I suspect that my colleagues who, like me, have strawberry growers in their constituencies agree that you cannot beat a great British strawberry. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] The noise around the room suggests that there is consensus on that point. Despite that high quality, there is a risk that we may see British produce replaced by imports. What an enormous shame that would be. It would clearly not be a good thing economically.

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate. I am sure she will agree that it is not just about the farmers struggling on workers or prices, but the processors that process the fruit or vegetables. In Northern Ireland, some of those factories are dependent on people from other countries, who can make up 40% and 60% of their workforce.

[Helen Whately]

The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely good point. I am focusing my comments on pickers, because that is the most visible part of the supply chain in my constituency, but there are hundreds and thousands of workers involved in the whole supply chain—between the plant and the table, so to speak—including large numbers of packers, processors and all that. The whole supply chain is affected.

[Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. The issue is not only about processing in factories. In my constituency of Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, a big farming area, up to 95% of factory workers are migrants. The issue is not only about fruit and veg, but about bacon and so on. Beyond that, the jobs cannot necessarily be done by my own constituents. I have only 635 at the moment who are looking for work. That is a big problem, too.

[Helen Whately]

My hon. Friend rightly refers to the large number of people working in the supply chain. Most of us—I know this is the case in my constituency—do not have many people looking for work.

Farmers have told me how their EU workers are genuinely worried at the moment about their legal rights to be in the UK. There are also concerns about their safety following reports of attacks on migrant workers. I hope the Minister will reiterate that the status of EU workers in the UK remains unchanged. It would be helpful to communicate that clearly to EU workers in the UK to make absolutely sure that they feel welcome and understand that legally they are allowed to remain and work in the UK while we are in the European Union.

The recent referendum result was decisive and, rightly, the Government plan to negotiate a Brexit deal that controls free movement. However, that creates a challenge for an industry that relies on seasonal migrant labour largely from the European Union. This is where the Government may be able to help. I want the Minister to look into piloting a new seasonal agricultural workers scheme, known as SAWS, for 2017, next year.

We used to have a seasonal agricultural workers scheme until 2013, as my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Sir Henry Bellingham) has mentioned. Similar schemes exist in other OECD countries, including New Zealand, Canada, the US and Australia. Organisations from the NFU and the Fruit Advisory Services to the Migrant Advisory Committee agree that our old seasonal agricultural workers scheme worked well, as my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) mentioned. SAWS had robust entry and exit checks, which meant that more than 98% of those who came to work in the UK returned home when their work was complete. For that reason, those coming to Britain under SAWS did not count towards immigration figures. This debate on SAWS should not be seen as part of a wider debate on immigration. It is very much about the workforce for a specific sector.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way and I congratulate her on securing this debate. On the seasonal workers who return home after they have worked here, whom she has mentioned several times, it is obviously the case that they are able to secure employment here more easily and more readily than is the case closer to home in their own nation states. As in so many other issues relevant to the Brexit negotiations, their countries benefit from the moneys that they earn here and return to their own nation states to spend, so it is not a one-way system; it is a two-way process that should benefit farmers in the UK and the workers’ countries of origin as well.

[Helen Whately]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. On the new scheme that we would like to pilot, we would expect it to include all the positives of the old scheme: oversight by the Home Office; checks on arrival and departure; restrictions on the length of placement; and independently accredited standards.

People often ask, “Why can’t British farmers employ British labour to do all the work? Why do we look to recruit people from overseas?” I have brought this up with farmers in my constituency. I know that they and many others have tried to recruit locally, and it is possible to recruit small numbers locally. I held a jobs fair in Maidstone a couple of months ago. Representatives were there from the local fruit farms and they recruited workers on that day. However, the problem, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), is that there simply are not enough people looking for work. It is almost a downside of the very low unemployment rate that we have, which overall is clearly a good thing, but the fact is that there is not a swathe of people looking for work.

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful point, and I refer Members to my declaration of interest. On a good labour supply, horticultural farmers and producers often plan 10 years ahead, so they are planning for well into the 2020s at the moment. For them to plan, they need a good labour supply and Government policy to deliver that, or they will not invest now for the longer term.

[Helen Whately]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point about the investment decisions made in the farming sector where plans are made years in advance. It takes a long time for fruit plants to produce a crop, so farmers have to plan ahead and they need to feel secure about their future workforce. There is a short-term and a long-term problem, so reassurance is needed.

On the scale of the problem, in the picking season, farmers in my constituency need thousands of extra workers. A single large farm needs about 1,000 extra workers in the peak picking season. Across my constituency, between 5,000 and 10,000 seasonal workers are needed, and it is a pretty long season because strawberries can now be grown from March to October. However, in my constituency, only a few hundred people are on jobseeker’s allowance, so there is a big gap between the scale of the demand and the number of people looking for work. There is a real problem of numbers.

The days of fruit picking as a holiday job for students are long gone. We not only have a very long season, but supermarkets put enormous pressures on farmers, demanding absolutely impeccable quality and consistency of product that has to be available at high speed to meet demand. That involves picking at a very fast rate, which requires workers who are experienced and physically fit. Although the work is seasonal, workers do it for a significant period of time, often year after year. They cannot just show up and do the work for a couple of weeks. That is a myth that I want to debunk.

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on a concise debate. I have similar issues with growers in the vale of Evesham in my constituency. On the supermarkets that she mentioned, does she agree that they have an important role to play on pricing in their negotiations with farmers, because the price point is another pressure on many of our farmers?

[Helen Whately]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Supermarkets clearly have an important role to play on price. We want the price to reflect the cost of production. However, there is a balance to strike. If prices go up significantly, will British consumers still buy the product at the same rate? It is not an easy nut to crack. I will do my utmost to make sure I am concise, as my hon. Friend commented, and I am coming to the end of my speech.

Although some say that we should solve the problem through British recruitment, there is another approach that I have sometimes heard proposed, which is that we should solve the problem through mechanisation. These days all fruit and vegetables could be farmed mechanically using robots without a substantial workforce. There have definitely been significant advances in mechanisation. Lots of processes are now much more automated and mechanised. The horticulture industry is investing in mechanisation. I recently heard about a machine that has been developed for the robotic picking of strawberries, but that is some way off. It may be a decade or so before that becomes a real prospect.

[Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)]

The hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston) made a point about price. Many of the machines are extremely costly and investing in them will not solve the problem of the prices paid for produce. The machines are possibly a dead end.

[Helen Whately]

The hon. Gentleman has made exactly the point that I was coming to. Mechanised fruit picking for many fruits is some way off, and it would be expensive, particularly in the early years. Many parts of fruit farming are capital intensive, so we could introduce new technologies only gradually; otherwise the product would be completely unaffordable. It will take some time, so he is absolutely right.

I will briefly repeat my requests to the Minister. Will he reiterate that the status of EU workers in the UK remains unchanged and emphasise that farm workers in the UK should and must feel welcomed, because we value their contribution to the economy? Will he look at issuing some guidance to farm workers confirming their legal rights to remain in the UK?

Will the Minister look at trialling a new seasonal agricultural workers scheme from next year? That would be welcomed across the agricultural sector, especially by fruit and vegetable farmers in my constituency who want to be able to carry on producing great, fresh and healthy British fruit and vegetables.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Whately]

I thank the Minister for the time and care he has taken and for his comments. I particularly thank all hon. Members who have contributed. It has felt like a pretty lively debate. We have had strawberry wars about who produces the best strawberries. We have debated which the best apples are—the Russet performed very strongly; it is the English sparkling wine of apples, perhaps. We have also heard Kent compared to Ibiza. There has been a lot of emotion in the room as well.

To be serious, we have talked about how times have changed. Many of us have at some time picked fruit at a young age—who knows who was the youngest—and done our bit in the past. However, people do not work on the land any more, as the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) said, so we need a reliable supply of seasonal workers for our farms. I urge the Minister to keep looking at this, and to look not only at the overall figures for EU migrants but specifically at the agricultural sector to see what is happening to it. It is absolutely vital. As my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) said, this is an existential question.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).