Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will (a) hold discussions with industry (i) bodies and (ii) leaders on the proportion of seasonal agricultural workers that were from the UK workforce and (b) use the results of those discussions when presenting proposals for the future of seasonal agricultural work to the Home Secretary.

Defra works closely with industry bodies and leaders, regularly speaking with recruiters, growers, unions and associations, and making use of all available information and evidence to understand the labour supply picture for the agri-food supply chain.

Industry reports that supply of seasonal labour has been sufficient across the main horticultural sectors so far this year. Through the ‘Pick for Britain’ campaign, Defra has collaborated with industry to raise the profile of seasonal work on farms. The Pick for Britain website has received nearly 2 million unique page views since its launch but Defra does not hold any information about specific vacancies, interviews or people in jobs as that information is held by individual companies.

The horticultural sector will continue to be able to rely on EU nationals living in the UK with settled or pre-settled status. Around 3.7 million EU citizens and their families have been granted settled or pre-settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme and the application deadline is not until 30 June 2021. EU nationals who have settled status can continue to travel to the UK to do seasonal work in 2021.

On 19 February, the Government announced that the annual quota for this second year of the?Seasonal Workers Pilot scheme would increase from 2,500 to 10,000 places. The Pilot has provided thousands of non-EU workers to farms across the UK this year to undertake seasonal employment in the edible horticulture sector.

Defra will continue to work closely with the Home Office on seasonal agricultural workers and the needs of the sector.