UK allows overseas workers to fill staff gaps in agriculture and care

The government on Friday acted on two fronts to ease labour market shortages, allowing thousands of agricultural and social care workers from overseas to fill gaps left by a dearth of British staff.

In two announcements slipped out on Christmas Eve, ministers said British fruit and vegetable growers will be able to recruit overseas workers to help bring in harvests over the next three years, while foreign care staff will be allowed into the country under a special visa from early in 2022.

The Home Office had been reluctant to offer exceptions to tough new immigration rules on low-skilled workers introduced after the EU’s free movement of people provisions ceased to apply in the UK at the start of this year.

The extension of the UK seasonal agricultural workers’ visa scheme for another three years follows pressure from farmers who warned that cutting the overseas labour force would reduce domestic food production.

Neil Parish, Conservative chair of the House of Commons environment committee, claimed this month that Brexit was “destroying” UK agriculture, with labour shortages hitting a range of sectors.

The Home Office said on Friday that it would allow 30,000 overseas workers to enter the UK for up to six months for harvesting in 2022, the same number as this year, but with the potential to increase that number by 10,000 if necessary.

It added that the seasonal agricultural workers scheme, which was launched in 2019, would be extended for a further two years after that, but with reduced numbers from 2023, as ministers seek to force a switch to domestic labour and a “high-skill, high-wage economy”.

Environment secretary George Eustice said: “We recognise that agriculture has unique and seasonal requirements for labour at harvest and have listened to our world-leading fresh produce industry to understand their needs.”

Tom Bradshaw, vice-president of the National Farmers’ Union, said: “This is positive news for the thousands of fruit, veg and flower growers that rely on essential seasonal workers to help pick, pack and grade our iconic fresh produce.” He added that labour shortages were “rife across the whole food supply chain”.

Separately, the Department of Health announced that, for at least a year, foreign social care workers will be eligible to enter the UK under a health and care visa.

Home secretary Priti Patel said: “The care sector is experiencing unprecedented challenges prompted by the pandemic and the changes we’ve made to the health and care visa will bolster the workforce and help alleviate some of the pressures currently being experienced.”

Adult social care was experiencing major labour shortages before the Covid-19 pandemic, and post-Brexit immigration rules are expected to have an increasing impact, but a key issue has also been relatively low pay.

This month, the government’s Migration Advisory Committee said social care workers should be “immediately” added to the list of occupations that provide overseas nationals with preferential access to the UK.

The government made clear the addition of care workers to the UK list of shortage occupations would be reviewed once pandemic pressures had subsided.

Martin Green, chief executive of Care England, an industry body, said it had been calling for the change to the shortage occupation list “and in the longer term it will help the recruitment difficulties which are the number-one challenge in adult social care”. 

Daisy Cooper, Liberal Democrat health spokeswoman, said the government’s move was “too little, too late”.

“The paltry offer of a one-year visa will likely fail to attract the numbers of care workers we so desperately need,” she added.

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