Agriculture: Seasonal Workers

(asked on 25th April 2022) - View Source

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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what are their proposals for seasonal workers for the UK agricultural sector.


Answered by
Lord Benyon Portrait
Lord Benyon
Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
This question was answered on 28th April 2022

Defra continues to work closely with industry and other Government departments to understand labour supply and demand, including both permanent and seasonal workforce requirements, and to ensure there is a long-term strategy for the UK agricultural sector.

The Government has announced that the seasonal worker visa route will be extended to 2024 to allow overseas workers to come to the UK for up to six months to harvest both edible and ornamental crops. 30,000 visas will be available for 2022. This will be kept under review with the potential to increase by 10,000 if there is clear evidence of need.

While acknowledging the sector’s reliance on foreign workers, the UK is committed to becoming a high-skilled, high-wage economy and the Government has been clear that more must be done to attract UK workers through offering training, career options, wage increases and to invest in increased automation technology.

Defra’s Review of Automation in Horticulture will be published shortly and will inform a range of policy decisions regarding automation and seasonal labour from 2022 onwards.

In addition, agricultural businesses can continue to rely on EU nationals living in the UK with settled or pre-settled status and EU nationals who have settled status can continue to travel to the UK to do seasonal work in 2022 and beyond. Over 5.7 million EU citizens and their families have been granted status under the EU Settlement Scheme.

Defra is working with industry and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to raise awareness of career opportunities within the food and farming sectors among UK workers.

Defra is also working closely with the Home Office to ensure that the requirement for these sectors is understood across Government.

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