Has the pilot seasonal workers scheme really become 'a shambles'?

摘要

With the soft-fruit picking season now in full swing, concerns have been expressed that the Government's pilot seasonal agricultural worker scheme, intended to partly alleviate the sector's ongoing labour shortage, is failing to deliver even the modest 2,500 extra workers it promised.Liberal Democrat MSP Willie Rennie, whose North East Fife constituency contains soft-fruit farms, told local media earlier last month (May) that the scheme was "an absolute shambles" due to bureaucratic delays in the source countries of Ukraine, Moldovaand Russia. Based on industry concerns, the UK Parliament's Scottish Affairs Committee chair Pete Wishart MP has written to the Home Office and Foreign Office urging their support to ensure applications under the scheme are dealt with promptly.