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Defra data shown in Table 1.3 (Chapter 1) supports that there is a decline in the proportion of EU workers in the agriculture, food, and fishing sector. Employers were concerned about how long this would be a possible alternative source of labour as more settled and pre-settled EU workers find permanent work and age out of physical labour. The NFU has reported that the proportion of Seasonal Workers that are EU nationals with settled/pre-settled status had fallen from 51% to approximately 33% between 2021 and 2022. As was set out in Chapter 3, this decline will likely exacerbate the need to engage the domestic workforce in lieu of other alternatives such as automation as set out in the Independent Review into labour shortages in the food supply chain. The previous government’s response has called on the sector to do more to attract and retain British workers, and referenced the Food and Drink Sector Council’s Sector Attractiveness Project Group. Employers said the stabilisation of source countries had increased possibilities for re-recruiting Seasonal Workers as previous fluctuations in countries recruited from by scheme operators had impacted the potential for recruiting and maintaining contact with potential returnees.

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As we discussed in Chapter 4, returnees are particularly valuable to employers and hence they have a business interest in ensuring workers will wish to come back. We also spoke to several Seasonal Workers who were happy with their work, pay, treatment and conditions. Representative bodies and other organisations commented that the roles and responsibilities of Defra and the Home Office regarding the route are still unclear, and that members were confused as to the remit of each department and who to approach when issues arise. They also identified gaps in accountability for decision making and monitoring on the scheme and said that clarification of these responsibilities would improve information and support on the scheme.

How the scheme is organised

In 2023, 53% of the total supply of vegetables in the UK was produced domestically, with the number being much lower for fruit (16%). Meanwhile, almost all of the UK’s supply of poultry (82% in 2023) and around half of the UK’s supply of ornamentals (55%) are produced domestically. The SWV is currently only available to foreign workers wanting to undertake jobs within horticulture (ornamental and edible), or poultry farming. We work with companies as well as private clients.There are several levels of certification we can provide, and the procedure differs if the documents are to be presented in the UK, for foreign consulates or Russia.

Organisation and communication on the scheme

On analysing 2022 Defra Seasonal Workers survey data (Table 5.4), 88% of workers said they were happy with their accommodation, with slightly fewer females than males being happy (83% compared to 89%). This may reflect some of the concerns raised by women in particular, such as privacy, lack of locks, and concerns about sharing with the opposite sex. Following the 2019 joint Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and Home Office review of the scheme, the Home Office updated guidance to recognise the high risk nature of the seasonal work and the risk of exploitation. As a result, route requirements not only focus on immigration compliance, but also worker welfare across various dimensions.

• Visits are scheduled immediately if intelligence suggesting serious guidance or welfare breaches is reported (by migrants or other organisations).
• You are welcome to enjoy seamless international communication with our top-tier document translation services from English into Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese in the United Kingdom.
• Scheme providers we spoke to said that welfare cases (for example in cases of relationship breakdown, domestic violence or abuse) would be prioritised for transfers even if a transfer would not normally be possible.
• We continue to believe that the agricultural sector needs to explore automated options that would reduce the long-term dependency on migrant labour, and that government must play a role in promoting investments in automation.
• The seasonal nature of the work was also said to be a barrier to recruiting domestic workers, with several employers saying that local jobseekers required long-term rather than temporary work given the likely fluctuations in Universal Credit this would cause.

Even examining agriculture sector wages more broadly (through ASHE, which is not able to distinguish seasonal workers nor whether they are on the visa route or not) sample sizes are too low to gauge industry or occupation pay levels with confidence (especially when combining the 2 identifiers). web link to enforcement may also exist, for example responsibility for Seasonal Worker welfare is devolved, but Devolved Administrations are not able to access information from scheme operators about where workers actually are. They can also report problems to welfare reps at their scheme operators, the Good Work app, or to GLAA, although workers may not want to raise complaints with either the body in charge of their overall sponsorship or to the same body that deals with immigration crime.
It should be noted that this analysis is limited in its ability to focus in on small rural communities – ITL3 regions contain between 150,000 and 800,000 people and so the economic importance of agriculture to smaller communities cannot be fully tested. An area may show a limited role for agriculture due to the presence of an economic hub like a city in one part of the region, even if the sector is important to communities in another part of the region. Further, farms’ contribution to areas is not limited to economic output and there would likely be additional social costs if there were to be closures. In 2013 for example, we heard from several partners that the presence of the seasonal workers also helps to maintain some rural services, for example bus and taxi services (MAC, 2013). They say the scheme affords them certainty and are reluctant to invest in automation without the guarantee of enough workers provided by the scheme, and production, to make their investments worthwhile (as discussed in Chapter 1). There is also the argument that the availability of workers through the scheme allows certain types of investment, e.g., in labour augmenting technologies which increase their workers productivity.
To note, this data was collected before the minimum hours guarantee, which applied from April 2023. Some employers told us that there may be restrictions in their ability to increase the hourly rate due to tight margins, something also mentioned in the previous government’s Independent Review into labour shortages in the food supply chain. The House of Lords report into the horticultural sector argues that this is a result of loss-leader pricing strategies in supermarkets which leads to poor grower returns within the horticultural sector.

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