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Nicholas Dakin
Main Page: Nicholas Dakin (Labour - Scunthorpe)Department Debates - View all Nicholas Dakin's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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George Eustice
My right hon. Friend makes an important point—this is crucial as we design environmental land management policy. There will be some interventions that may be highly short term, because they are instant and affect, for instance, the way in which farms approach agronomy or cropping. Others, such as those that my right hon. Friend highlights, may require a longer-term, more multi-annual commitment. That is entirely doable within the nature of the agreements that we are considering.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
There are concerns among those involved in agriculture in my area about whether there will continue to be appropriate access to workforce when we leave the European Union. What are the Government doing to ensure that that will be the case?
George Eustice
As the hon. Gentleman is aware, the Migration Advisory Committee is carrying out a large piece of work on the UK’s labour needs after we have left the European Union. We have also listened carefully to industry representations about a seasonal agricultural worker scheme after we leave the European Union, and a working group is looking at seasonal agricultural labour.