Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make it her policy to include entry-level permanent roles in the (a) agricultural and (b) horticultural sectors in the points-based immigration system.

A range of agricultural and horticultural occupations are already eligible for the Skilled Worker route including farmers, growers, market gardeners and poultry processors. However, the Government has no plans to introduce a general immigration route allowing recruitment at or near the minimum wage with relatively short or no work-based training requirements.

Investment and development of the UK’s domestic labour force should take priority, rather than seeing cheaper migrant labour as the solution to recruitment difficulties. Those businesses facing recruitment issues should therefore engage with the Department for Work and Pensions in the first instance about the support they can provide.