Asked by: Stuart C McDonald (Scottish National Party - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 6 July 2023 to Question 192337 on Labour Shortages in the Food Supply Chain Independent Review, what the criteria were for the appointment of the (a) chair and (b) expert panel; and whether she made an assessment of the potential merits of including people with lived experience of working as labourers in the food supply chain on the panel.
Answered by Mark Spencer
The chair and expert panel were directly appointed by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs based on a set of criteria, including for their knowledge and expertise covering farming, fisheries, processing and manufacturing aspects of the supply chain. Since it was an independent review, Defra is not responsible for commenting on the specific evidence used to shape the final report, but notes that the Review does contain a Methodology section with more information that may be of interest. However, Defra does undertake an annual survey of workers involved in the Seasonal Worker visa route and this information was made available to the review team.
Asked by: Stuart C McDonald (Scottish National Party - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will set out the selection process for the (a) Chair and (b) panel for the Independent review into labour shortages in the food supply chain.
Answered by Mark Spencer
The chair and expert panel were directly appointed by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs based on a set of criteria, including their expertise in the food and farming sector. This method of appointment is common practice for independent reviews commissioned by HM Government.
Now that the final report has been published, we will look closely at the findings and set out our response in the Autumn.
Asked by: Stuart C McDonald (Scottish National Party - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an estimate of the number of farms in Scotland with workers employed on the seasonal workers visa scheme; and the number of farms in Scotland with each labour provider.
Answered by Mark Spencer
We cannot publish any numbers with regards to the Seasonal Workers visa route which are outside of official approved Home Office published statistics. Details of the numbers of visas granted for seasonal workers, through the Seasonal Worker visa route, have been published in the usual way via the Home Office’s quarterly immigration statistics.
Asked by: Stuart C McDonald (Scottish National Party - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate he has made of the number of seasonal workers working in Scotland by labour provider as of 1 August 2022.
Answered by Mark Spencer
We cannot publish any numbers with regards to the Seasonal Workers visa route which are outside of official approved Home Office published statistics. Details of the numbers of visas granted for seasonal workers, through the Seasonal Worker visa route, have been published in the usual way via the Home Office’s quarterly immigration statistics.
Asked by: Stuart C McDonald (Scottish National Party - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an estimate of the number of farms in the UK with workers employed on the seasonal workers visa scheme; and the number of farms in the UK with each labour provider.
Answered by Mark Spencer
We cannot publish any numbers with regards to the Seasonal Workers visa route which are outside of official approved Home Office published statistics. Details of the numbers of visas granted for seasonal workers, through the Seasonal Worker visa route, have been published in the usual way via the Home Office's quarterly immigration statistics.
Asked by: Stuart C McDonald (Scottish National Party - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate he has made of the number of seasonal workers working in the UK by labour provider as of 1 August 2022.
Answered by Mark Spencer
We cannot publish any numbers with regards to the Seasonal Workers visa route which are outside of official approved Home Office published statistics. Details of the numbers of visas granted for seasonal workers, through the Seasonal Worker visa route, have been published in the usual way via the Home Office's quarterly immigration statistics.
Asked by: Stuart C McDonald (Scottish National Party - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when he plans to bring forward legislative proposals to ban the import of hunting trophies.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
The Government committed in its manifesto to introduce a ban on the import of hunting trophies from endangered species. The COVID-19 pandemic has delayed the publication of the Government response to the recent consultation and call for evidence on controls on the import and export of hunting trophies. We will set out our plans for action on this important area as soon as it is practical to do so.