AQW 4241/22-27
Mr John Blair
Alliance Party
South Antrim
Tabled Date: 07/10/2022
Answered On Date: 18/10/2022
Priority Written: No
Question:
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs whether he has met with his UK Government counterparts in relation to the easing of immigration regulations for agri-food workers to address labour shortages in the sector.
Answer:
Since the introduction of the new immigration system in January 2021, reports of labour shortages and concerns have been consistently raised by our agri-food stakeholders in NI as well as by stakeholders across the UK. As a result, there has been ongoing discussion and engagement on the matter, including at the most recent Inter-Ministerial meeting in July 2022. Ultimately, immigration policy is a reserved matter and as such my primary focus has been ongoing communication with the top levels of Government in Whitehall to highlight the severity of the problems facing our agri-food sector. I have made several representations to my relevant UK counterparts on the issue including raising concerns in person as well as providing written correspondence. In January 2021 I provided an in-depth evidence paper to the Home Office which analysed both the seasonal and non-seasonal migrant labour need in the NI agri-food sector and over the past 20 months I have continued to highlight the issues and proposed solutions outlined in this document. I last met in person with the then Defra Secretary of State George Eustice MP on 08 June 2022, to discuss a number of issues facing the NI agriculture sector, including labour challenges as I understand fully the impact that the immigration system is having on the supply of labour in our agri-food sector. I also wrote to the new Defra Secretary of State Ranil Jayawardena on 07 September 2022 regarding the challenges and opportunities facing the NI agri-food sector raising labour concerns. I received a response to this correspondence on 29th September 2022 stating that the United Kingdom is committed to becoming a high-skilled, high-wage economy and more must be done to attract British workers into the sector by offering training, career options, wage increases, and increased investment in automation technology. While the UK Government’s consistent response to labour concerns has been their immigration policy will not change and that all sectors requiring labour should focus their efforts on recruiting domestic workers and investing where possible in automation, they have introduced some changes in recent months to their visa routes. For example, in June 2022 it was announced that the Seasonal Agricultural Workers (SAW) scheme quota would increase from 30,000 working visas to 40,000 and that a fifth of these additional visas would be allocated to the seasonal poultry sector. Furthermore, the chancellor Rt Hon Kwasi Kwarteng MP delivered his 2022 Growth Plan speech in late September 2022 and committed to providing a planned statement on immigration policy in late October 2022/early November 2022 as part of this plan. It is hoped that this statement will include detail on help address the labour shortage issues across the economy including the agricultural sector. I plan to keep pressing on the issue and my officials are currently collating evidence highlighting the significant labour shortage concerns in our agri-food sector that will be provided to the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) when they commence their review of the Shortage Occupation List which is expected to launch following the Chancellor’s statement on immigration policy later this month.
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