Seasonal Migrant Workers

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Thursday 1st March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman and I am happy that he intervened. This must be a balance, and my understanding is that although currently a huge amount can be done with mechanisation in a packing environment, we are not yet there for apple and plum picking, and we may not be there for three, four or five years—who knows? There is a lot of talk about technological solutions being the answer to the border issue between Ireland and Northern Ireland—or, indeed, between Camden and Westminster—but in practice those blue sky solutions do not yet exist. I did hear someone suggesting that drones might be the solution to the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, so perhaps that is also the solution for picking apples and plums. Realistically, however, those technological solutions are not yet there.

What is the solution to this problem? Hon. Members will not be surprised to know that the Liberal Democrats will continue to campaign for a vote on the final deal, so that if people do not like what they are offered once an eventual deal is struck between the UK Government and the EU, they have a chance of pulling away from it and stopping Brexit. If that does not happen, what is the immediate solution to our problem? Clearly, it is to allow workers from EU and non-EU countries—increasingly, it will be non-EU countries—to come to the United Kingdom through controlled schemes that have worked effectively in the past. It will also be about supporting technology to ensure that investment goes into those areas where that can make a difference.

We also need a seasonal scheme. In the past I have heard senior Ministers say, “Oh, we can sort it all out by introducing six-month visas”, but that will not be sufficient. As we have heard, the season now lasts for 10 months, so the visas must be longer than the six months proposed. If all that can be implemented now—not at the end of the year and not next season—there is a realistic prospect that most of our farmers will be able to pick all their crops. If we do not act now, however, there is a real risk that reports towards the end of this year will be about a substantially greater proportion of fruit and veg left to rot in our fields.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

It is just possible that our farmers will get through this year because freedom of movement is still available and farms have access to eastern European migrants who hopefully will come and do the work. Next year is when it all kicks in, because freedom of movement will end and the available sources of labour will go with it. At that point we will need innovative solutions to bring in seasonal labour so that the crops can be picked.

[Tom Brake]

I agree entirely, and there must be a sense of urgency about this. As I understand, however, yesterday the Government made a U-turn, and having said that March 2019 was the cut-off point for new arrivals, they will now allow people to continue to arrive during the transition period. If that is correct, that may help the industry for a further few years.

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[Peter Grant]

Absolutely, and I would extend that to many other areas of activity, whether in private sector industry or in our greatly stressed public services. Home Office officials need to get out of the office and meet the people who work in agriculture, the health and social care services and universities, and hear why their approach to immigration—whether it is immigration on a permanent basis or migration on a temporary basis—is simply wrong.

[Pete Wishart]

I was at the debate when the Select Committee reported the urgent requirement for a seasonal agricultural workers scheme and the five to six-month time limit was mentioned. Is my hon. Friend as baffled as I am over why those in the Home Office are so cloth-eared when it comes to the demands for the scheme? Could it have anything to do with their self-defeating obsession with immigration—with seeing everything through that lens, and stopping people coming to this country?

[Peter Grant]

I do not think that that criticism applies only to the Home Office. I think that it applies to the entire Cabinet and, indeed, the entire Government. There is still far too much of an obsession with immigration as a bad thing that must be brought down at any cost. It is becoming clear that if the Government are to get anywhere close to delivering the headline reduction in immigration that they claim would be a good thing, the health services and the agriculture sector will suffer, as will a great many industries.

I was somewhat surprised by what was said by the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont). He made some valuable points, but he is in complete denial about one fact. Although this problem is not entirely the creature of Brexit, and existed to an extent before Brexit, anyone who claims that Brexit is not making the problem worse really needs to return to planet Earth. It is patently obvious what one impact—one inevitable consequence—has been, not only of the result of the vote itself but of the vile xenophobia that characterised so much of the debate. It was always going to be a consequence, and we are seeing it now, whatever the hon. Gentleman may try to tell us. It has made the United Kingdom a less attractive place for people to want to live and work in: it has made us less appealing.

The hon. Gentleman blamed part of that on the fall in the value of the pound. I wonder what might have caused the value of the pound to go through the floor so suddenly, some time towards the end of the third week of June 2016. I wonder what it might have been that upset the international economists and business people at that time of the year. It did not seem to affect the dollar or the euro, so it cannot be blamed on global changes. Perhaps the Government tend to try to blame other factors.

Even the House of Commons Library, which is not generally renowned for taking sides in political debate—indeed, it is rightly renowned for not taking sides in political debate—tells us in the briefing that it prepared for today’s debate that since the closure of SAWS, and particularly in the run-up to the UK’s exit from the European Union, employers have been finding it more difficult to recruit staff from overseas. The Government’s responses, including the assurances that we were given on 6 July 2017 about the reintroduction of SAWS or a similar scheme, have still not been taken any further.

There has been mention of a consultation paper published a couple of days ago by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The foreword is written by the Environment Secretary. We in Scotland remember very fondly promises from the Environment Secretary, who assured us that one of the consequences of Brexit would be that Scotland could have control of its own immigration policy. Perhaps the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk would like to go and tell the Environment Secretary that he had clearly taken leave of his senses if he thought that that was ever a possibility.

In all the 64 pages of the consultation paper, the word “seasonal” appears once. The crisis facing parts of our agricultural sector as a result of the inability to attract seasonal workers is hardly even recognised by DEFRA’s flagship new consultation paper—and, presumably, draft policy. When it refers to the labour force that is needed in agriculture, it talks of the investment and skills needed to mechanise. It talks of engineers and science and technology workers. It talks of things that are needed in some parts of agriculture, but those things will make no difference whatsoever to the soft fruit industry, and to other parts of agriculture where mechanisation is simply not realistic. That gives the worrying impression that the soft fruit industry will be allowed, literally, to wither on the ground.

Since the Government wrongly abandoned SAWS in 2013—and we all remember the Home Secretary who made that decision, who knew better than all the farmers, the NFU, NFU Scotland and all the rest of them, who knew more about how to run agriculture than the people who worked in it—the difficulties faced by the sector have been made substantially worse, and will continue to become substantially worse.

[Peter Grant]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Pete Wishart]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The ruling you have just made is very important, and I wonder whether it might be worthwhile abandoning this afternoon’s business now so that Members and staff can get home sooner because of the inclement weather.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s point, but I have neither the power nor the inclination to abandon the business. I am, however, making an appeal to the decency of Members, and say that sometimes if one is making a point it can be made just as effectively if made more quickly.

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[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair) on securing this important debate and agree with her that the issue is now becoming critical in dealing with some of the pressing issues we have in both of our constituencies. I could not help thinking of her predecessor, Mike Weir, who was such a doughty champion of agricultural businesses up and down Angus. I think it was Mike who, in making informed and proper interventions in a series of debates, first warned of the danger of losing the seasonal agricultural workers scheme and the impact that would have on businesses in her constituency and mine. We owe a great deal to Mike Weir for his work over the years.

I represent some of the finest agricultural businesses in Scotland. Strathmore, shared by me and the hon. Member for Angus—I actually used to represent her part of Strathmore years and years ago—and the Carse of Gowrie could perhaps be described as the bread basket of eastern Scotland. The town of Blairgowrie in my constituency is almost exclusively synonymous with the soft fruit industry. Much of the heritage of east Perthshire is bound together with tales of the berry farms and stories of luggies, cleeks and dreels. This is all at risk because of the cloth-eared approach of this Government to the issue of seasonal agricultural workers and their self-defeating and damaging obsession with seeing absolutely everything through the lens of immigration. For this Government, immigration is something that has to be stopped and that has to be curbed. What we are seeing now in our agricultural businesses is that this has become collateral and a real issue that now threatens the viability and survival of many farms in my constituency.

I tried to figure out why the Government were so resistant to proposing a seasonal agricultural workers scheme. It can only be about immigration, and if it is not the Minister can get up and tell me why there is that reticence. It is all about immigration, isn’t it? I am seeing a blank look, so I presume that it is. I know that everything about leaving the European Union is, for this Government, about stopping, curbing and doing everything they can to stop people coming into this country.

The hon. Member for Angus referred to the helpful and useful report from NFU Scotland that demonstrates the scale of the reliance on foreign and migrant labour of businesses in my constituency—and hers, and those of all other Members from Scotland. I know it is hard to believe, as we look outside and see the snow brought in by the “beast from the east” settling on the good city of London, but the first British strawberries of the season have already appeared. They have come from a place in south Wales, and they have beaten the record set more than 10 years ago in February 2006. This demonstrates the scale of the innovation in the industry, the technology that is being applied, and the way in which the season has now been extended by incorporating new planting methods and the use of polytunnels. The extended cropping period now usually lasts from April to the end of October. It is fantastic to be able to get a punnet of strawberries before the Easter holidays and still to be enjoying them beyond Halloween. That is the type of season that we now have, and it is an issue that we need to address.

However, something remains the same in the business despite the advent of new technology, and that is that someone has to ensure that the crop is planted, maintained and harvested. Someone still has to do that work. We have heard stories from other Members about this. When I was a young lad, that work was traditionally done by young local people. The young Wishart, for example, would regularly head out to the berry fields with his luggy by his side, enjoying the prospect of being in the open air and supplementing his meagre pocket money over the course of the summer. Then, in the tattie holiday, I would be howking the tatties oot the fields. That was the sort of thing that we always enjoyed. That work paid for my first musical instruments. That is the contribution that seasonal work in the fields made to the aspiring Wishart as a musician. Now, practically all that soft fruit is lifted by people from the other side of Europe, on whom our producers rely almost exclusively to get the crop in.

I was in this House when the seasonal agricultural workers scheme was put in place, and I remember the debates that we had on it. It has to be said that the Labour Government were always quite keen to get shot of it. They were not the most—how shall I put this—friendly Government towards the countryside and agricultural issues. Those issues were just not part and parcel of the way in which the Labour Government looked at things, and why should they be? Very few of their Members represented countryside areas. Then the Conservative Government came in, and we were told not to worry about the demise of the seasonal agricultural workers scheme because we were in the European Union. We were told that people from the accession countries—as they then were—would regularly come in because of freedom of movement, and that we would not need the scheme any more because there would be a steady supply of labour.

Well, that has worked out perfectly, hasn’t it? We are just about to leave the European Union, and all of a sudden, that source of migrant labour will diminish. I intervened on the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), to make that key point. We will probably just about get by, this year. I am not certain that all the businesses in my constituency will manage to survive, but I think that we will somehow muddle through because we still have that access to eastern European labour. However, that will go next year unless we have transitional arrangements in place. Will the Minister give us an assurance that there will be transitional arrangements until the Government get their act together? Next year will be critical, because our usual source of labour will end. I am not going to get into a debate about where we will look for other migrant workers. We have heard all this stuff about Ukraine and Sri Lanka, but that sounds like fantasy when we have had such a good source of migrant labour up to now.

The other massive disincentive that we have heard about today is the exchange rate. These seasonal agricultural workers could now go and work in more clement conditions in Spain and elsewhere in southern Europe where they would be earning euros, so the exchange rate would not be an issue for them. The Government should not pretend that the declining exchange rate has nothing to do with their chaotic Brexit. It has absolutely everything to do with it. We have taken a double hit when it comes to seasonal migrant agricultural workers: we are losing them not only through the lack of freedom of movement but because this chaotic Brexit has ensured that they earn less money when they come here.

I have probably visited all the farms in my area on several occasions, as well as some in the constituency of the hon. Member for Angus, and I have found an incredible melting pot of people from different cultures and nationalities who come to Scotland to sample a different experience. Over the years, we have seen people enjoying the experience of being in Scotland at all sorts of cultural evenings and ceilidhs. Those people are the brightest and best of their countries. We think of them just as fruit pickers, but they are the students who will soon have their own hard-earned euros. We want to give them a positive experience so that they will come back to Scotland to spend them. That is soft power at its very best. Seasonal agricultural workers are good for the producer, good for the migrants who come here, good for the local communities and good for our nation. Minister, sort it out!

I have the James Hutton Institute in my constituency, and it does fantastic work to ensure that our crops—mainly raspberries and strawberries, but also potatoes—are more resilient, productive and pest-resistant. The people who work there are primarily European, and they are thinking about going away. Why would they stay in a country that is telling them that they are the source of all its problems and ills, and whose defining priority is to ensure that people like them stop coming here? Why would they continue to work here when they have transferable skills and could go elsewhere, where they would be made to feel much more welcome? From the field to the laboratory, we are dependent on that labour, and that is what we are putting at risk.

I have only one message for the Minister, because we have debated this time and again: get it sorted. Put forward a scheme so that we can go back to our farmers and tell them that there will be something in place that will allow them to harvest their crop. Some 750 tonnes of Scottish soft fruit production is dependent on the Minister doing the right thing. Otherwise, we could end up in a situation in which, despite having one of the best products in the world, our shelves will be packed with foreign produce. I have only three words for the Minister: get it sorted.

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[The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair) on securing this debate. I pay tribute to her for the eloquent way in which she made her points. I have absolutely no doubt that her constituents have an extremely effective representative in this House.

I am grateful, too, for all the other speeches we heard this afternoon. There has been a great deal of consensus, as the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) rightly pointed out. We have had a series of well-informed contributions, although early on I felt that I should perhaps have had lunch first, given the wide variety of produce we got to hear about. I thank the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) for reminding me that today is the first day of spring.

This Government place great value on the UK’s food and farming industries. We recognise them as crucial to the UK economy and to the fabric of rural Britain. Let me be clear that I say that both as a representative of the Government and in a personal capacity. The constituency I have the honour to represent covers 162 square miles, and I reassure the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), who yelled from a sedentary position, “You need to get out into the fields”, that I certainly do so in my constituency. I am astonished to hear that he was in the House when the seasonal agricultural workers scheme was originally introduced, as that happened in 1945. He is clearly ageing extremely well.

My constituency is far smaller than the constituency of Angus, but it is still large and has sizeable rural areas, so I am very aware of the role that the farming community plays in shaping the rural economy and preserving the countryside—to say nothing of the vital role it performs in putting food on our plates.

As hon. Members know, this week the Government published “Health and Harmony: the future for food, farming and the environment in a Green Brexit”. I am delighted to have the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), here with me this afternoon, and he will no doubt concur that we want to see a more dynamic and more self-reliant agriculture industry as we continue to compete internationally, supplying products of the highest quality to the domestic market and increasing our exports. Alongside that, we want a reformed agricultural and land management policy to deliver a better and richer environment in our country.

As we have heard, there is a huge opportunity for UK agriculture to improve its competitiveness by developing the next generation of food and farming technology. I reassure hon. Members that their comments about automation in soft fruit picking have not fallen on cloth ears—I am very conscious that huge parts of the sector are reliant on arduous manual labour.

We want to help attract more of our graduates and domestic workforce into this vibrant industry. Importantly, the White Paper also addresses the issue of apprenticeships. We will create more apprenticeships, widen participation and create progression for apprentices. Our reforms will help meet the skills needs of employers by putting them in control and enabling them to work with education providers to develop their workforce now and in the future. We heard that message from across the House. My hon. Friends the Members for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham) and for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), and my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), all mentioned the need to make working in the sector more attractive to our young people.

We have heard much this afternoon about the UK’s exit from the European Union and the issues that that brings for the labour force. The Government have been very clear from the start that our first priority is to safeguard the position of the 3 million EU citizens already in the UK and of the British citizens living in Europe. The practical consequence is that all EU citizens currently working in the UK, whether they are fruit pickers or farm managers, can stay and settle in the UK if they so choose.

As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made clear in her Florence speech last year, it is our intention that, for around two years after we leave, EU citizens will still be able to come and go and to work in any capacity with a registration system, so there will be no cliff edge for employers. Only yesterday, we set out what the rules will be for those who arrive during the implementation period, so that individuals planning to live, study or work in the UK after March 2019 will know what the arrangements will be if they want to stay for longer than two years. It is crucial to business that those arriving during the implementation period will have certainty that they can stay for the long term.

We have clearly stated throughout the negotiations that we value EU citizens and the contribution they make to the economic, social and cultural fabric of the UK. Our offer is that those EU citizens and their family members who arrive, are resident and have registered during the implementation period will be eligible, after the accumulation of five years’ continuous and lawful residence, to apply for indefinite leave to remain. That was an issue that the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) raised.

For the time being, the UK remains a member of the European Union, with all the rights and obligations that membership entails. Employers in the agricultural and food processing sectors, and elsewhere, are free to continue to recruit EU workers to meet their labour needs. This debate is very timely, in that it follows the publication last week by the Office for National Statistics of two important sets of numbers. The first were the quarterly net migration statistics, which show that although the rate of European net migration has slowed, it is still positive. The ONS figures indicated that in the year ending September 2017 there were 90,000 more EU citizens in the UK than there were a year earlier. Secondly, the ONS published the labour force statistics, which demonstrate that in the period October to December 2017 there were 100,000 more EU citizens in the UK labour force than there were a year earlier, including 79,000 more Romanians and Bulgarians. Of course, I appreciate that there is a difference between established workers and seasonal workers of the kind who predominate in agriculture, but it is important that we recognise that there are many EU citizens in the UK and that there are more than there were at the time of the referendum.

In 2013, the last seasonal agricultural workers scheme was abolished, on the independent advice of the MAC. We know that since then the agricultural sector has been working hard to recruit the labour it requires. The hon. Members for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) and for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) mentioned an important aspect of this—the treatment and condition of workers who come over to this country. It is important that we continually have an eye to modern slavery, that we look at the conditions in which people are living and that they are paid the minimum wage. In an important part of the review that we undertook with Matthew Taylor, he emphasised the need to make sure that employees had good conditions and indeed had payslips. That remains a priority for the Home Office.

We recognise the concerns raised by Members from across the House about labour shortages. That is one reason why we have commissioned the MAC to conduct a review of the UK labour market’s reliance on EU labour and the read-across to the industrial strategy. I know that the MAC has received many submissions from within the agricultural sector and from DEFRA—I say that to reassure the hon. Member for Bristol East. They will weigh heavily in the MAC’s deliberations and recommendations. My door is always open to representations, and Home Office officials regularly meet representatives from all sectors of the economy, from business and from academia—

[Pete Wishart]

rose—

[Caroline Nokes]

Given that many Members took a great deal of time, I am not going to take any interventions.

I also assure Members that we keep the situation under constant review, referring specifically to a seasonal agricultural workers scheme. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs made that point clearly when he addressed the National Farmers Union conference last week. That applies equally to all sectors of the economy. We have heard a little this afternoon about tourism and other sectors that might also be affected.

This Government are determined to get the best deal for the UK in our negotiations to leave the EU, including for our world-leading—

[Pete Wishart]

rose—

[Caroline Nokes]

No, I am not going to give way. The hon. Gentleman and his colleagues took many minutes up earlier.

As I was saying, we are determined to get the best deal, including for our world-leading food and farming industry. In the meantime, we will continue to support the industry, to work with it and to review the situation going forward. I would like the industry to be assured that it has friends in government. I look forward to discussing these issues again and to keeping the recommendations under close review, and I will be appearing shortly before the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when I am sure this matter will be raised—

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[Pete Wishart]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman can see that the Minister does not intend to take an intervention. [Interruption.] Order. He knows that he cannot make points from a sedentary position. He has already made his points and the Minister has heard them.