Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether the exemption from immigration rules for seasonal workers in the perishable food industry extends to those in the fish processing sector.

The Government operates no exemption from Immigration Rules for seasonal workers in the perishable food industry. Within the Immigration Rules, the Government operates the Seasonal Worker route which allows up to 45,000 workers to come to the UK for up to six months to pick both edible and ornamental crops (e.g. fruit and flower picking). The route also enables up to 2,000 poultry to come to the UK in the run up to Christmas. The Seasonal Worker route is specifically designed to support the UK horticulture and poultry sectors – both sectors which typically require higher volumes of labour, for relatively short-term periods of time, in line with seasonal production peaks. The route is not designed to support non-seasonal roles, operating on a year-round basis, such as fish processing.