Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of extending the Seasonal Agricultural Workers scheme in Northern Ireland to include mushroom growers.

The Seasonal Worker visa allows workers to come to the UK for up to six months in any twelve month period to pick both edible and ornamental crops (e.g. fruit and flower picking). The list of eligible occupations covered by the route already includes mushroom pickers, as set out in paragraph SAW4.1(f)(vi) of Appendix Temporary Work - Seasonal Worker of the Immigration Rules.