NPA welcomes key recommendations of independent labour review

The NPA has welcomed the core findings of a comprehensive independent review of labour shortages in the food chain.

The review, led by businessman John Shropshire, called on Government to expand the migrant worker skilled worker route, a move the industry hopes will make it easier to recruit butchers from abroad.

It also recommended that the Government and industry develop a strategy to enhance the sector’s image and highlight the opportunities available across the food sector.

Labour shortages, which were one of the prime causes of the horrific pig backlog in 2021 and 2022, continues to be a problem throughout the food supply chain, with many businesses in the pig sector, including farms, struggling to fill vacancies.

The report, commissioned by then Defra Secretary George Eustice in August 2022 as a recommendation of the Government’s Food Strategy and published on June 30, links the labour challenges within the food chain to broader macroeconomic changes, including record-low UK unemployment and Brexit.

“This shortage of labour is not only due to competition from other sectors but also because of the impact of the UK leaving the EU, which has reduced the number of available EU workers,” it said.

In 2016, 20% of agriculture’s permanent workforce were EU nationals, and 95% of seasonal workers were from Bulgaria and Romania, while 40% of the food manufacturing workforce were EU nationals in 2014. There has been a steady decline in EU workers since 2016, although the report stresses that shortages are an issue in other EU countries, too.

“The reliance on migrant labour and uncertainty around immigration policy has created significant challenges for the industry,” the report said.

Furthermore, it said the evidence gathered also showed that the labour challenges also include ‘negative perceptions of the sector, unappealing working conditions such as physical demands, unusual working hours, undesirable environments, and repetitive tasks’.

Recommendations

It made 10 recommendations to industry and Government, including:

• Implementing a comprehensive strategy to enhance sector attractiveness and promote opportunities in the food supply chain, led by the Food and Drink Sector Council, with a communication campaign aimed at demonstrating the sector is vital to the economy and national food security.
• Replacing the Seasonal Worker visa scheme pilot by the end of 2023 with a scheme that ensures the industry has enough workers to maintain domestic food production levels.
• The government should expand the eligibility criteria for the Skilled Worker visa route to include roles currently considered lower-skilled. The review supports industry and Defra submissions to the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) under the Shortage Occupation List review, which include adding butchers to the list. The Government should relax the English language requirement.
• Businesses should provide clear training and career development plans for their UK-domiciled staff on the understanding it is an investment, not a cost.
• The Government should completely overhaul the Apprenticeship Levy to provide a highly skilled workforce, including making it more flexible.
• There must be collaboration to ensure a better understanding of the skills required by the food supply chain to allow a clear and purposeful strategy to be developed between government, education providers and industry.
• Further and higher education funding bodies should review food supply chain-related subjects to ensure courses are well-resourced and that recurrent and capital funding, is enhanced and protected in the long term.
• Defra, in partnership with the Office for National Statistics and the Department for Education’s Unit for Future Skills, must set out a workforce data strategy aimed at improving the available data on labour and skills supply into the food supply chain to help businesses with workforce planning.
• The government must improve access to funding that incentivises the uptake of automation among businesses in the food supply chain who reported struggling with the costs involved.

Farming Minister Mark Spencer welcomed the report. He said the Government had announced that more seasonal visas would be available next year.

“We also need to develop more attractive opportunities for UK domestic workers and make greater use of apprenticeships, and we continue to work with industry and across government on these areas,” he said. “We will look closely at the findings of the review and will set out our response in Autumn, as the Prime Minister confirmed at the recent Farm to Fork Summit.

NPA comment

NPA chief executive Lizzie Wilson said the NPA agreed with all the report’s key findings and urged the Government to act on this key issue for the future of our food industry.

“The pig sector knows more than any other the impact labour shortages have had, and are still having, across the whole supply chain. Labour shortages are currently a primary constraint on the UK’s ability to produce pork.

“We submitted detailed verbal and written evidence to this review, as well as other industry stakeholders, and I am pleased to say this excellent report has taken our views and those of others into account with recommendations for both Government and industry that can, if implemented, help us to remove these barriers.

“We urge the Government, as an immediately implemented solution, to act without delay on the call to make it easier to employ skilled migrant labour, including adding butchers to the shortage occupation list and easing the English language requirement.

“Longer term, we are also prepared to play our part, working with others, in any campaign that help make the pork supply chain a more attractive place to work.”