To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (i) to detail any positive outcomes resulting from conversations with the UK Government regarding the easing of immigration regulations for agri-food workers; and (ii) for an update on his assessment of labour supply in this sector.

I met with the then, Defra Secretary of State George Eustice MP on 08 June 2022, to discuss a number of issues facing the NI agriculture sector, including labour challenges as I understand fully the impact that labour shortages are having on our agri-food sector. Disappointingly, the Home Office continue to be steadfast in their view that their immigration policy will not change and that all sectors requiring labour should focus their efforts on recruiting domestic workers and in investing where possible in automation.

Over the past 18 months, I have had extensive and regular engagement with our agri-food stakeholders on the issue of labour shortages and they have indicated that despite offering competitive wages and other incentives, they have struggled to recruit all the workers they need. They have collectively expressed concerns that insufficient appetite exists among our domestic workforce for the types of jobs they

are able to offer. This is why, I continue to press the UK Government for changes to existing immigration policy because I realise that aspirations for increased domestic workers and use of automation will only be possible with time and investment.

Despite the UK Government’s insistence that they are not open to considering new visa routes or easing their immigration regulations, they did announce a week after this meeting that they would be expanding their Seasonal Agricultural Workers (SAW) scheme from 30,000 working visas to 40,000. They also agreed that a fifth of these additional visas would be allocated to the seasonal poultry sector. I greatly welcomed this development because I had made a recommendation for the inclusion of the seasonal poultry sector in this scheme based on my own engagements with NI stakeholders. Furthermore, I believe it does highlight that if there is enough evidence to justify a change that the UK Government have shown they are willing to make adjustments.

On the second point regarding my assessment of labour supply in the NI agricultural sector, I want to be clear that unfortunately there is still a shortage problem, albeit that recently there has been less requests from stakeholders to meet and discuss the matter. However, this is because for many of these businesses the immediate focus has now switched to soaring energy and fertiliser costs and potential issues with Carbon Dioxide supplies.

The labour shortages in the agri-food sector have been exacerbated by the fact that there are labour shortages being experienced in all sectors of our economy and this is coupled with a very low unemployment rate. The most recent published statistics show that UK unemployment rate for May to July 2022 was 3.6% which is the lowest rate since May to July 1974. In Northern Ireland, our unemployment rate is

even lower at 2.7% as of June 2022. While it is great to see unemployment rates so low it is problematic for those businesses trying to fill shortages because there is a smaller pool of potential domestic employees available and significant competition for these potential workers.

As stated earlier I still believe that in the short term we will continue to have a need for access to non-domestic workers to help fill some of the labour shortages in our industry and I continue to engage with Government in Whitehall on this matter.