Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether workers who enter the UK under the new Seasonal Workers Pilot will be charged for NHS emergency healthcare.

The scheme operators for the Seasonal Workers Pilot are required to provide pilot workers with fulltime employment, and are responsible for ensuring that the pilot workers they sponsor are provided with a regular income, and not left destitute if, for any reason, full-time work is not available over any particular period.

The scheme operators are not permitted to offer zero hours contracts to workers.

Pilot workers come to the UK for six months or less and are therefore liable to NHS overseas visitor treatment charges. The scheme operators are therefore required to ensure that all participants have suitable health insurance before they travel to the UK. Charges do not apply to accident and emergency treatment, and immediately necessary or urgent NHS care is never withheld irrespective of status.