Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Wednesday 20th June 2012 Westminster Hall

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your stewardship of the debate, Mr Dobbin. I begin by congratulating not only the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson) on securing the debate—a very good and wide-ranging one—but my opposite number, the Minister, who I understand has just celebrated 25 years in the House. I offer him my sincere congratulations. I do not think that he will get a telegram from the Queen for serving 25 years, but I understand that he has had a pat on the back from the Prime Minister. It is a tremendous track record, so very well done to him.

I thank the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey for securing the debate. It is a good opportunity to discuss quite a wide range of issues that affect agricultural workers and employers. He made a thoughtful and, sometimes, provocative contribution. All the points that he raised are worthy of debate. I know that the Minister will want to respond to the serious points that he raised.

Many hon. Members here today have declared their youthful experience of working in the fields up and down the land. I will include myself among them. With my brother, I used to pick potatoes on the fields of Gower. Tremendous potatoes they are, too—but not in my constituency, so I am advertising another’s. It was back-breaking work. So many hon. Members have declared their great experience of doing that and the skills that they developed that, during the summer recess, we might be able to fill the shortages ourselves if we return to the fields.

Many hon. Members have focused primarily on the seasonal agricultural workers scheme. Although discussions are ongoing in his Department and others, has he made an estimate of any shortage post 2013? What will he be doing to avoid such a shortage? Some estimate must have been made to deal with the concerns raised by hon. Members about shortages that will occur if we do not have something in place post 2013. Perhaps the Minister can share that with us, unless he anticipates that, because of measures that are under way, there will be no shortages whatever, crops will not lie in the fields and go to waste across various parts of the garden of England or Scotland and production lines will not come to a standstill, as we fail to sort those products for market.

I was pleased to hear of the meeting that was arranged by the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) recently. It is good that that has prompted some action. If I understood correctly what she said, the group that has been set up will bring together the Home Office, the Department for Work and Pensions and others, including, I hope, the Minister. Will it be a powerful group chaired by the Minister, or a Minister or senior official? Given its importance to agriculture, I hope that the Minister will do so, although I understand that SAWS is the responsibility of a different Department. Members would welcome the group having a ministerial chair to ensure that it delivers post 2013 and is not left to senior officials, no matter how good they are. I hoped that such a group would be in action, without being prompted by the hon. Lady’s great efforts on behalf of her community, or by the farming unions. The Minister will want to update us on that.

I congratulate James Chapman, the former chairman of the National Federation of Young Farmers Clubs. As the Minister will know, he lost his arm in a farming accident. When he considered what to do in response, he bravely and admirably decided to campaign on farm safety, which we have not yet touched on today. He was recently awarded an MBE in the Queen’s birthday honours list, on which we congratulate him. It reminds us how critical farm safety still is and how much more needs to be done to ram home the message about the need to protect not only oneself, but fellow workers in dangerous agricultural settings.

This week marks the first anniversary of the Farm Safety Crusade. I pay tribute to the work of farming unions and insurers who are promoting farm safety against the backdrop, of which we all know, of a year-on-year rise in the number of accidents and fatalities. NFU Mutual has seen year-on-year increases in serious accidents on the farms that it insures. Shocking statistics from the Health and Safety Executive show that agriculture now holds the unenviable position of being the UK’s most dangerous industry, with 42 people killed in the year to April 2011. Over a 10-year period, more than 435 people have been killed as a result of agricultural work activities. Tragically, that it almost one person every week.

A great deal of good work is going on to turn that around, from the nationwide Farm Safety Crusade to efforts such as the “farm safe” campaign and the annual “efficiency with safety” competition arranged by Cornish Mutual and Cornwall Federation of Young Farmers Clubs. There are many other sector-led initiatives around the country. What efforts are the Government making in Whitehall and across the regions to turn around the rising tide of fatalities and serious injuries in farming and to reinforce the efforts being made in the field by others?

The Minister recognises the criticality of the issue, so I urge him to ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to focus her mind on it and personally meet the HSE with him to push hard for a solution. I was disappointed to learn in a written answer on 24 November that there had been no recent discussions with the HSE on the safety of agricultural workers because the responsibility fell to another Department. I honestly do not think that that is adequate. I know that the Minister takes the issue very seriously. Will he give an undertaking that he and the Secretary of State will meet the HSE to discuss the problem and see what more can be done? It is not simply something that has happened under the present Government; I have made it clear that agricultural accidents and fatalities have been a rising trend.

The work of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority is of huge importance.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)]

That is the next debate.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

It is indeed, but as I will not be present on the Front Bench for the next debate, I will take the opportunity to comment. The GLA has been commented on by other hon. Members.

The action that the GLA takes to tackle worker exploitation in the agricultural, horticultural, shellfish and food processing sectors is second to none. Its success has been acknowledged by everyone in the House and in wider reports, including those by the universities of Liverpool and Sheffield, the Wilberforce Institute and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. The Minister and I debated the issue in February, and it will shortly be debated again in this Chamber, but at that time we were still awaiting the outcome of the red tape challenge, so we were a little in the dark.

On 24 May, the Government announced the outcome of the challenge and the changes that they intend to make to the GLA. The announcement included news that the GLA has taken a risk-based approach and will no longer regulate low-risk sectors. That includes apprenticeships, forestry, land agents and voluntary workers. Automatic compulsory inspections of businesses when they first apply will be abolished. The licensing period will be extended from 12 months to two years for highly compliant businesses. There will be a move to allow shellfish farm businesses with exclusive rights to use the seashore to use their workers to grade and gather shellfish stock, without needing to be licensed as gangmasters. There will be a substitution of administrative fines and penalties for low-level and technical minor offences, which we debated in some detail during the last such debate. Alternatives to prosecution when taking enforcement action against a labour-user who uses an unlicensed gangmaster will be explored. There will be a focus on the gross abuse of workers by unscrupulous gangmasters who commit multiple offences, such as tax evasion and human trafficking.

We welcome the Government’s commitment to the GLA. I say that in spite of the appalling Beechcroft recommendation to abolish it—an opinion reflected in some of the responses to the recommendation. It was an unacceptable and dangerous proposal, and I am glad that the Government have said that they will not accept that or other recommendations in the report. The Minister will agree that the bottom line must be that the most vulnerable workers in our society are not abandoned. What impact assessment did the Government undertake—I am sure that they undertook one—before announcing the changes? What will be the impact on protecting vulnerable workers? Where are the areas of risk in this risk-based approach?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)]

I can add my experience to the debate, Mr Dobbin. I am probably the one who has most recently done such activities, and I am probably the only one who, as a farm manager a long, long while ago, employed such groups of people, which was not always the easiest personnel management issue that one faced.

One advantage of speaking last in the debate is that I can put to rest the argument about which is the most important constituency in the country for the production of fruit and vegetables. Although I might be prepared to acknowledge other constituencies for fruit, I certainly will not do so for vegetables. Cambridgeshire and my fenland constituency are renowned for the production of high-quality vegetables and salad crops. I know that that is a somewhat light-hearted comment, but it means that for 25 years as a constituency member—I am grateful to the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) for his personal congratulations on my time in this place—I have been involved in many of the problems that my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson) raised, because I have substantial growers trying to employ large numbers of people to harvest salad and root crops in my constituency. I congratulate him very much on initiating this debate. I knew his main thrust was about SAWS, because he kindly furnished me with a copy of what he was going to say, but I was not surprised when other hon. Members, especially the hon. Member for Ogmore, used the opportunity to raise other issues.

In 2011, the total UK agricultural work force—a varied work force that includes farmers, business partners, directors and spouses—numbered around 476,000, of which approximately 177,000 were employed workers. Unlike most industries’ balance between employed and self-employed people, in agriculture only about a third of the total are employed. Like other sectors, agriculture requires a reliable source of labour, but perhaps more than other industries it needs flexibility, to meet the peak seasonal demands of planting, harvesting and cropping. Such work is always there but, as shown by this year’s experience of the daffodil crop, recounted by the hon. Member for Angus (Mr Weir), it is subject to the vagaries of the weather. No Government or board can ensure that crops across the country harvest sequentially, which is the ideal for the movement of daffodil pickers from Cornwell to his constituency.

Clearly, we need a constant and ready supply of temporary labour. As every speaker today has said, that used to be provided by students and others. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey will know, large sections of the London population used to move down to Kent or Herefordshire for hop picking. Those days are gone, however, and we have seen the advent of the seasonal agricultural workers scheme, which has for a long time played a key role in meeting seasonal demands. Traditionally, as my hon. Friend said, SAWS allowed students from universities outside the European Union to work in the UK agricultural industry for periods of up to six months, and provided an opportunity for students not only to develop skills in agriculture but to learn the English language and experience a different culture and way of life. Of course the EU was much smaller in then; as it has expanded, the role of SAWS has changed.

As several hon. Members have said, the Home Office is responsible for the administration of SAWS. Its assessment of a continuing need for the scheme changed in the light of EU enlargement in 2004 whereby many countries that previously sent students under SAWS did not need to continue to do so because there was free movement within Europe. My own sons used to work in the sector and regularly worked alongside large numbers of Poles and people from the Baltic states in particular. [Interruption.] My Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski), is delighted at the support for Polish workers. In those days of course, the gulf in wealth was such that workers could come to the UK, work for six months and literally go home and buy a house; for them, it was often a major economic contribution to their future life. Obviously, however, once those countries acceded to the EU, the situation changed. The subsequent introduction by the Home Office of the points-based system to manage economic migration closed down low-skilled migration from non-member states.

That brings me to the change made in 2007 by the previous Government to restrict workers from Romania and Bulgaria. Although those countries had acceded to the EU, transition arrangements were put in place. That is consistent with the requirements of the Community preference principle, which states that preference in access to labour markets should be given to EU nationals over workers from third countries. The SAWS quota level for 2012 and 2013 is set at 21,250.

SAWS was due to close at the end of 2011, but following the decision to retain restrictions on labour market access for Bulgarians and Romanians for a further two years, my hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration announced at the end of last year that it would continue until 2013. As I hope hon. Members will appreciate, I am very much aware of the desire to know what is to happen after 2013. I can say that DEFRA is working closely with colleagues from the Home Office and the Department for Work and Pensions on the matter; however, no decision has been taken yet on whether a successor scheme to SAWS will be put in place. We clearly need to look at the evidence—we do not yet have all that in hand—that the sector is unable to meet its seasonal labour needs from the UK and the rest of the EU. In that respect, the Home Office has indicated that it intends to ask the independent Migration Advisory Committee to advise on the case for a future scheme. Obviously, I expect that stakeholders will have the opportunity to provide evidence to the committee.

At this stage, it is important to refer to the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) about the UK labour market and to my own experiences as a constituency MP. In the past, major efforts to bring busloads of unemployed people from centres of high unemployment into Cambridgeshire to do this work have been an abject failure. The bus may come full the first day, but the second day it is half-full and the third day there is only one person on it. People just do not stick it. With the changes that are being made under the universal credit arrangements, which my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey mentioned, we all hope to get a lot of the long-term UK unemployed back to work. That is the objective and we hope and believe that the changes should work, but we do not yet know what their precise consequences will be.

The wider context, which several hon. Members referred to, is the issue of overall migration. I share the view expressed by the hon. Members for Angus and for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) that there has been some confusion over the role of SAWS. I fully accept that the history of SAWS is that the vast majority of people who come to the UK under SAWS go home when they are supposed to and that the number of people who fail to do so is minimal—in single figures, I believe. Nevertheless, we must ensure that our overall objective to reduce net migration is not undermined.

The key issue will be whether any new scheme, if there is one, can be effectively managed to ensure the departure of participants who come from outside the EU. To prevent confusion, I should emphasise that people from Bulgaria and Romania will have free access under any new scheme. It is not the case that we are stopping them coming to the UK; they will be able to come anyway, even without SAWS. The end of SAWS will not reduce in any way the potential supply of agricultural labour. Those people who are coming to the UK under SAWS will still be able to come. The issue is whether they will then come for other reasons—for example, to seek other employment—as has happened over the years with people who have come from those countries that joined the EU earlier. Obviously the UK is not alone in using migrant labour; many other countries in the world use it, but given the increased scope for labour migration from within the EU since 2004, we must approach the case for more labour migration from outside the EU carefully and soberly.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire discussed whether we should rely on migrant workers to meet the seasonal demands for labour. As she said, the Government are already taking steps to get the long-term unemployed back to work, and agriculture has a role to play in that process.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey asked about prisoners. Working outside prison, whether in paid or unpaid work, is an important step towards reintegrating those prisoners who are preparing for release back into society. The Government are committed to expanding the number of opportunities for prisoners to volunteer to work in the community or to work in paid employment. As my hon. Friend recognised, the highest priority clearly has to be public protection, and all prisoners working outside a prison are rigorously risk-assessed. My hon. Friend also referred, quite properly, to the National Farmers Union’s policy paper, “A Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme (SAWS) for the Next Decade”, which refers to the employment of prisoners and ex-prisoners. He said that that paper notes there is some caution among employers about employing prisoners and ex-prisoners, and I will not repeat all the points that he rightly made. However, in relation to SAWS, I can assure him that DEFRA is fully aware of the need to ensure that crops are harvested.

As an aside, I should say that one of the very satisfying developments in the past few years has been the reclaiming of the domestic fruit market Domestic producers had lost that market to imports, but now a much higher proportion of fruit consumed in this country is produced here. It would be absolutely tragic if we allowed that trend of increasing domestic production to go into reverse because we were unable to harvest domestic fruit.

My hon. Friend referred to the common agricultural policy, greening and the possible switch between the two pillars of CAP. Let me try to explain the present position, although I will not go into detail because, as hon. Members know, the CAP is so complicated that I could use the next few debates trying to explain it in full.

We are now at the end of the Danish presidency of the EU and in the Agriculture Council on Monday we took stock, with a paper from the presidency about where negotiations and discussions have gone. Under the greening proposals, the European Commission is suggesting that 30% of direct payments should be conditional on achieving an element of greening in pillar one. The British Government’s position is quite clear: we believe that greening is ideally dealt with under pillar two, where it is possible to make more effective targeted payments and achieve better value for money. However, it looks as if greening will be dealt with under pillar one; if so, we will have to accept that. We are therefore in discussion with many other countries about how we can adapt the Commission’s “three-legged stool” to which my hon. Friend referred—the three criteria—to ensure that British farmers, particularly English farmers in stewardship schemes, are not disadvantaged by those criteria.

I have already said, and I emphasise again now, that if people sign up to a stewardship scheme and subsequently find that they are seriously disadvantaged, they will have the option to leave the scheme. I do not want that to happen and we are working very hard to try to ensure that membership of a stewardship scheme is somehow reflected in meeting the criteria of the greening proposals. I cannot prophesy what the outcome will be, but I assure hon. Members that that is the objective. I guess it is an objective shared by all hon. Members that our farmers should not be disadvantaged. The Commission has referred to our farmers as champions of the environment, and that should be reflected in their ability to access payments.

On the widest aspects of the CAP, we want to see better value for money and a reduction in the overall CAP budget. We do not see why the CAP should be immune from the immense pressures facing the whole of the EU—not just the pressures arising from the euro crisis, but the overall pressures on the economies of member states. We believe—it says that in my brief, but I passionately believe it—that the day will dawn when subsidies and direct payments will disappear. I have believed that for a very long while. I want those involved in the CAP to face up to that and to begin to plan for it. It will not happen today or tomorrow, or in the current seven-year time scale, but I believe that it will happen; and not only do most people believe that it will happen eventually, but they want it to happen. For example, most of the younger generation of farmers want it to happen. We should be planning for that day.

What we need to be doing and what we want to see from the CAP is the introduction of measures to encourage the agriculture industry to become far more competitive, market-oriented and innovative. Given the global changes in the food market, those in the industry would consequently be able to achieve their necessary income from that market and from the increasing demand for food from across the globe.

We do not believe that changes to the CAP will have a significant impact on agricultural employment. The Scenar 2020 study prepared for the European Commission suggests that changes in employment are largely being driven by wider developments in the economy and improved efficiency in the sector. According to its own analysis, which was based on there being no reform of the CAP and no further trade liberalisation, the Commission expects a 25% fall in the agricultural work force across the EU by 2020.

To encourage employment rather than subsidise it, we need to make it easier for farm businesses to take on workers, which brings us, inevitably, to the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Ogmore about the Agricultural Wages Board. I do not think that the Government have ever said, and I hope that I have never said it, that the minimum wage provisions entirely replaced the wide range of provisions under the Agricultural Wages Board. I am not surprised that the hon. Gentleman could read into the record a long list of statements made by the board. Self-evidently, the AWB does not want to be abolished, so it is hardly surprising that it said what it has. I have certainly never suggested that all the measures the board provides will be replicated by the minimum wage.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I simply want to put on the record that it was not the Agricultural Wages Board that made those statements. I was reading from an independent report for the Low Pay Commission that was commissioned from the independent consultancy Incomes Data Services, Thomson Reuters. The report runs to about 100 pages, and I read from the conclusions, which are specific and evidence-based.

[Mr Paice]

I am grateful to the shadow Minister for his clarification, and I am happy that the record has been corrected.

The key point, however—my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer) really touched on it—is that we are talking about modernising an industry, and the fact that only 20% of the work force are on the basic rate makes the case for not needing it, and does not, as the shadow Minister suggested, somehow undermine it. The reality is that the vast majority of people are above the basic rate, and I emphasise that no one already employed in the industry can lose out, because they are protected by their current contracts. Of course some criteria are not included, but there used to be a plethora of such wages boards and councils—largely set up by Labour Governments—and many dealt with bits and bobs such as holiday pay and so on. We need to recognise, however, that in 13 years of the previous Labour Government, in which the hon. Gentleman served, not a single one of them was brought back. If it is so important that workers are covered by all those other arrangements, he needs to explain why the Labour Government did not bring back any of them back.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the timetable. I can tell him that the Government are determined to abolish the Agricultural Wages Board. Negotiations with the Welsh Assembly Government are ongoing, as he said, but I cannot tell him exactly when the board will be abolished. We intend to do it, but there are the negotiations and discussions to go through. As said said, the board has concluded the next round, and that will come into play. I am advised that the IDS report to which he referred gave scenarios, but that the Low Pay Commission concluded that it was too early to judge what the full implications of the board’s abolition would be.

I fully understand why the hon. Gentleman used this opportunity to talk about gangmasters, but as my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour the Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay) is about to open a debate on that topic, I intend to reply to the points the hon. Gentleman raised in my response to that debate. If he wants to stay and listen, I am sure that you, Mr Dobbin, or a successor Chair, will allow that.

I will end by talking about safety, which is of such great importance. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was just being kind or whether he knew about this, but I feel passionately about safety because within a fortnight of joining the agricultural work force at the age of 17, I witnessed a fatal accident in which someone of my age was killed within a few feet of me. That has had a lasting effect on my attitude to farm safety. I was a victim of a considerably less serious accident myself and I still bear the scars, so I take second place to no one in my concern for farm safety.

I am proud that a long time ago I won a Farmers Weekly competition on farm safety—that proves my credibility on the subject. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that the industry’s record is horrendous and we should do everything we possibly can to remedy that. I cannot speak for the Secretary of State, but I happily assure the hon. Gentleman that I will speak to the Health and Safety Executive. He should not take from the fact that the meeting to which he referred has not taken place that there is any less enthusiasm or commitment to safety. I cannot repeat often enough that farms are not playgrounds. There is a place for young children—sadly, many of the accidents involve young children—but, in today’s world, that place is not in a farmyard.

The other factor affecting safety is that farming is often a lonely, remote activity, and people who might otherwise be saved die in accidents because of the distance from help or the inability to get help. I am pleased that there are now many technologies whereby people can call for emergency help—a bit like what we might find in sheltered housing, but much more sophisticated. That is good, but none of us can be too intense in our desire to drive down the scale of farm accidents. It is important to note that when I set up Richard Macdonald’s task force, I deliberately placed on it the health and safety representative for agriculture so that we would not be increasing any farm risks. That is hugely important.

I think that I have addressed the various questions—

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I thank the Minister for his reassurances about health and safety. I do not doubt his personal commitment, or that he will meet with the Health and Safety Executive.

Is it too early to ask based on the evidence and the Minister’s privileged position of involvement in discussions with ministerial colleagues, whether DEFRA has a preference for something to replace the seasonal agricultural workers scheme post-2013, and whether there is any difference in stance between DEFRA and the Home Office or any other Department? Does the Minister have a preference to replace SAWS with another scheme?

[Mr Paice]

The hon. Gentleman uses his delightful, gentle style to try to tempt me into doing something he knows full well from his own ministerial experience is verboten in ministerial circles—commenting on relationships with other Departments. I have no intention of being dragged into the trap.

As I quite properly said, we do not yet have all the information with which to form a judgment, but that is being worked on. I have described how the Home Office will ask the Migration Advisory Committee to look into the matter. Clearly, we will study the figures and assessments and talk to the Department for Work and Pensions and the Home Office about the future work force, but I will not be tempted into any debate about what other Departments, or indeed my own, are considering.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I understand the Minister’s reluctance, but may I ask when we are likely to see any progress in the ongoing discussions, so that Parliament can also contribute to the debate post-2013? Will it be by the summer, or by the early autumn—September or November? Early autumn could become January.

[Mr Paice]

The hon. Gentleman pushes and pushes, which is remarkable given that I have already taken nearly half an hour to respond to the debate. I cannot give him a timetable. I fully appreciate the concern about the industry. I have had my—I had better be more precise: I have had representations made to me by the industry, by my constituents, and obviously by Members this morning. I fully accept that the industry needs to know where its future work force will come from. We are working with other Departments to try to ensure that, but I am not in a position to make an affirmative statement at this moment.

I hope that I have picked up the majority of the points raised. I again congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey on securing the debate. I should have also joined in the congratulations to Mr James Chapman, who I know, as the shadow Minster said. He has been a marvellous example of how people can use their own tragedies to help others.

[Jim Dobbin (in the Chair)]

Shadow Minister, I assume that you are waiting for the next debate. I have to explain to you that Opposition Front-Bench spokespeople cannot intervene in a half-hour debate.