UK ‘can’t feed itself’ without labour
Britain will not be able to feed itself without the help of seasonal non-uk labour after Brexit, according to the head of a farming union.
NFU Scotland president Andrew Mccornick said Scotland and the UK are “getting thrown into a meltdown situation as far as labour is concerned” in either a deal or no-deal scenario.
The warning came as a UK minister was photographed in Downing Street carrying a hand-written note reading: “No food, no Channel Tunnel.”
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted that the paper “looks just a bit too obvious” to be a warning about a no-deal Brexit. A Whitehall source was quoted saying the document carried by Mel Stride, the financial secretary to the Treasury, was a list of issues to raise at a meeting.
In a blog post on the NFU Scotland website, Mr Mccornick said a UK government pilot of a Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme providing temporary visas for up to 2,500 non-eu nationals during the post-brexit transition was insufficient.
Mr Mccornick said: “Unquestionably, the obvious sectors that will feel it first will be fruit, veg and horticulture, requiring approximately 10,000 people per year in Scotland alone.
“It is much bigger than that, though. The largest manufacturing sector in the UK is food processing and a big part of their labour is nonuk - more than 50 per cent in the red meat sector; more than 90 per cent of vets in approved meat establishments; upwards of 30 per cent of the permanent staff in the dairy sector, and 40 per cent of staff in egg production.
“Huge numbers of lorries on our roads are driven by non-uk drivers (60,000 approx) and the retail sector requires large numbers of non-uk staff … We cannot feed our nation without this labour.”
While Scottish rural secretary Fergus Ewing was in London yesterday in a last ditch attempt to get the UK government to take a nodeal Brexit off the table, UK farm minister, George Eustice was in Glasgow giving strong hints that the degree of disruption likely to be inflicted on the farming industry in the event of such a scenario was being overstated.
Speaking at the annual Semex conference in Glasgow UK farm minister George Eustice – while declaring himself in support of the PM’S deal which is due to undergo a “meaningful vote” today – said that the real question of whether coming out without an agreement would be “a catastrophe” or simply “turbulent” would largely be down to how the European Union reacted.
“If they were to behave in a constructive way – and there was goodwill on both sides to manage what would be a difficult situationthen there would be turbulence but it wouldn’t necessarily be a catastrophe,” he said. “But if the EU were to act in a rather reckless way then, yes, there could be some really severe problems at the borders.”
While admitting that all the government’s projection models had indicated that the lamb sector would be the hardest hit, he said it was likely to be “swings and roundabouts” for other sectors: “There could be some products which find it harder to get into the UK creating opportunities for UK producers, others where some exports might be frustrated.
“Overall we suspect that currency adjustments would mitigate most of the damage for most of the sectors. But undeniably we are quite exposed on lamb.”
Theministerstonewalled on requests made at the conference by English NFU president Minette Batters, pictured right, to “put down in black and white” – in both the UK Agriculture Bill and in future trade bills
– the requirement for trade negotiations to ensure that any imported foodstuffs met the UK’S high standards on welfare, environment and food safety standards.
He said that as trade deals were being drawn up they would be subjected to regular appearances before scrutinising committees, including agriculture, meaning that there would be a Parliamentary check on the deals.
“But we couldn’t be clearer that we’re not going to water down our high standards of food safety and animal welfare in pursuit of a trade deal, we are crystal clear about that – but it is not at all easy to simply put that into a clause and legislate on it.”
However Ewing said that the UK government had to remove the threat of a no-deal Brexit immediately, and avoid “potential disaster” for industries like aquaculture, food and drink, and farming.
He said a host of letters from various rural organisations had expressed such fears: “The underlying message in all that correspondence is that a nodeal Brexit must be avoided at all costs. To do otherwise could set back our rural economy by years – maybe even decades; an act of economic self-harm that could potentially wipe out jobs, industries, and even some of our more vulnerable communities, who are heavily reliant on tariff-free trade for their prosperity.”