Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the withdrawal of the visa concession for temporary employment as sheep shearers on the sheep industry.

Immigration Rules concessionary arrangements are temporary and subject to regular Ministerial review. The sheep shearing concession had been operating for 14 years and closed after the 2025 shearing season as it reasonable to expect that over this period a long-term sustainable solution had been found to fill this workforce gap. To provide plenty of time to plan and transition to new arrangements DEFRA officials were informed last year that the concession would not be renewed again.

Ministers regularly meet with their DEFRA counterparts to discuss a wide range of issues, including the closure of this concession.