Immigration minister Robert Jenrick has made it clear that the government will not be granting growers’ appeals to turn the seasonal worker scheme into a long-term programme and extend the time workers are allowed to stay in the UK.
In a parliamentary question at the end of April, Tatton, Cheshire, MP Esther McVey asked if the Home Office had assessed the potential merits of committing the seasonal agricultural worker scheme to a five-year rolling programme and lengthening the period of the scheme’s visas to nine months.
The NFU and other grower groups have been campaigning for both changes, to ensure enough workers will be available across the growing season and to give growers greater certainty ahead of making cropping plans.
But Robert Jenrick said that although the scheme was kept under ‘ongoing review’ the government currently had no plans to make either adjustment.