Visas for fruit pickers

MIGRANTS from outside the EU will be allowed to work on UK farms in a first look at the post-Brexit regime.

Ministers announced they were reopening the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme (SAWS), axed in

013, which let foreign workers take short-term jobs picking fruit.

The trial paves the way for a visa scheme which would allow tens of thousands of migrants to temporarily come to the UK after we quit the EU.

About 60,000 seasonal workers come here each summer, almost exclusively from Eastern Europe.

Under the new plans, farmers will be allowed to hire non-EU workers for six months under a ‘tightly controlled regime’.