We recommend a minimum of 2 months’ pay as an additional protection to cover the costs currently borne by workers in coming to the UK such as visas and flights, with an exemption where there are extenuating circumstances (for example, dismissal for poor performance). Workers should be informed from the outset that they might not be able to work for the full validity of their visa. However, there is evidence of a lack of adequate communication and consultation with scheme operators and employers by the Home Office around this requirement, and it is yet to be fully implemented in practice.
SUPPORTED FORMATS
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The DLME has consistently identified agriculture as a high-risk sector for labour market non- compliance. The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI) has also identified the agriculture sector as a high-risk sector. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) also classes agriculture as having a high risk to health due to the nature of the work. Fatal injury (in the agriculture, forestry and fishing sector as a whole) is 21 times higher than the all-industries rate and non-fatal injury is statistically significantly higher.
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- The 2022 Defra Seasonal Workers survey found that 61% self- reported working in the UK for over 5 months, 20% for 4 to 5 months and the remaining workers less than 4 months.
- As labour market tests delay recruitment, the requirement to demonstrate active efforts to recruit British workers therefore seems to be a pragmatic alternative.
- We therefore recommend that the scheme operator recruitment model should be retained, and that direct recruitment should continue to be disallowed.
- However, this labour requirement is not fixed, and it is possible this could be reduced with additional automation within horticulture, something discussed in more detail later.
- The guidelines state that this must be for a year-round role and at the same skill level or higher, allowing employers to obtain support in more skilled roles (including for supervisory roles not included on the Skilled Occupation List).
- In an industry where a considerable amount of illegal working could exist, a seasonal worker scheme reduces the need to use illegal workers, where exploitation and negative social impacts would be greater.
Instead, we recommend that the scheme be amended to support employers needs by shortening the ‘cooling off’ period on the horticulture visa to 3 months, whilst maintaining that Seasonal Workers can come to the UK for a maximum 6-month period in a calendar year. The seasonal nature of the work was also said to be a barrier to recruiting domestic workers, with several employers saying that local jobseekers required long-term rather than temporary work given the likely fluctuations in Universal Credit this would cause. As a result, some employers recruited populations who were open to the seasonality of the work, including university students (for crops where harvest times coincided with holidays) and prisoners on the Release on Temporary Licence (ROTL) scheme.
However, the occupational/industry-based comparison is not perfect, with these groupings including a variety of jobs beyond just seasonal work. At present, a direct comparison between the hourly wages paid for seasonal work to those on the SWV and to others undertaking this work in the UK not on the route is not possible, limiting our ability to understand if SWS workers are being underpaid for the same work. For workers on the SWS, while mean hourly pay data exists, we do not have access to median pay or ranges, nor any breakdowns by occupation or industry to understand pay differences for different types of work better. For seasonal workers in the UK not on the route (largely EU Settlement Scheme, Ukrainian and some British workers) we are not aware of any wage data that exists.
The Independent Chief Inspector for Borders and Immigration (ICIBI) criticised this in the 2022 Inspection of the immigration system as it relates to the agricultural sector and recommended that the Home Office produce a document clarifying formal responsibilities for each department by July 2023. However, Defra has produced a diagram (Figure 2.4 below) that summarises some of the key organisational and enforcement relationships. Recruitment must be to specific roles, within the defined visa and cooling-off periods, and must comply with requirements on pay and hours worked. Technical and business knowledge across horticultural stakeholders varies significantly and hinders the adoption of new technologies. The skills required to develop, install, operate, and maintain the next generation of automation technologies will likely be science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) based.