CUTS TO SEASONAL WORKERS POLICY THREATEN HARVEST

3.00.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Wed 16th Apr 2008

The Government's decision to cut the number of people able to participate in the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme threatens to cause chaos to the harvest on our farms and market gardens, LibDem European agriculture spokesperson Liz Lynne has warned.

From this year, Ministers decided to stop people from outside the EU taking seasonal jobs under the scheme, and to confine it to workers from within the EU, including Bulgarians and Romanians who are currently not normally eligible to work in the UK. But many farmers say it will be impossible to find enough pickers from the local and EU employment market to meet the demand.

Speaking today, Liz said:

"The UK Government is showing complete naivety by failing to look at the situation on the ground. They do not seem to recognise the sad fact that many strawberry farms and market gardens are struggling to find the workers they need. Ministers have apparently already forgotten that last year fruit and veg went unpicked in some areas.

"Seasonal migrant workers play a vital and historic role in British horticulture; it is something that so long as employment and national minimum wage legislation is enforced, benefits producers and employees alike.

"Unless policy is changed to attract more workers, farmers face a continuing nightmare at harvest time - the last thing they need after the floods and the rural payments shambles."

"Producers must give their views and continue to voice concerns by completing the current Home Office consultation on migration and labour shortages which can be filled in until the 25th of this month. I urge them to do so and let their voice be heard. Accurate information on the situation is clearly badly needed."

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

The University of Liverpool has been commissioned by the Home Office's 'Migration Advisory Committee' (MAC) to assess labour shortages within UK agriculture. The survey which is available for producers to fill in can be accessed via the NFU website, by clicking here. It needs to be completed and returned to the University of Liverpool by email or post by Friday 25 April. The results will be presented to the Home Office's Migration Advisory Committee in May.

Between 2004 and 2006, the number of foreign workers coming to the UK from outside the EU as part of the government's Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme (SAWS) was slashed from 25,000 to 16,250 and now non-EU countries such as Russia and Ukraine are unable to take part, so all participants will now come from Bulgaria and Romania.

The Home Office has said that the shortfall of seasonal workers would be made up by other eastern and central European workers who were given free access to UK jobs when their countries joined the EU in 2004. However, farmers and employment agency officials warned last year that the majority of migrant workers were looking for more permanent work.