Asked by: Helen Whately (Conservative - Faversham and Mid Kent)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate he has made of the number of (a) non-UK EU and (b) other seasonal agricultural workers who have come to the UK in each of the last five years.
Answered by George Eustice
Until 2016, Defra published data on the estimated number of seasonal agricultural workers in all UK countries in “Agriculture in the UK”, which is a Defra publication. Since 2016, data is published for England only, collected by the June Horticulture and Agriculture Survey. Data from the past 5 years is shown in the table below.
Defra does not collect data on the nationality of those workers.
Seasonal, casual & gang labour | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 |
UK numbers | 67 000 | 61 000 | 66 000 | 67 000 | N/A |
England-only numbers | 44 985 | 39 203 | 43 036 | 44 939 | 43 894 |