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ALP Representative and Policy Work
Immigration Policy
ALP maintains an ongoing correspondence and dialogue with the Home Office and Defra Access to Labour team to represent the voice of our members, feed into policy making and obtain clarity on new and evolving issues.
Government has previously remained steadfast that general immigration will not be used to address labour shortages amongst lower skilled sectors. There is no general immigration route for lower-skilled workers and at the time of writing, no clear indication that this policy is likely to change.
ALP policy has been that sector-based schemes for lower-skilled workers should be introduced for critical sectors and indeed the Government has done this for health, social care and food supply where evidence indicates a shortage.
The Seasonal Workers’ Scheme is extended until 2024, with an increase to 40,000 workers in 2022 and the addition of workers in ornamental horticulture and poultry processing to the existing edible horticulture workers that can be recruited and supplied under the scheme. An open tender opportunity increased the numbers of approved scheme operators to five horticultural and two poultry labour providers. Evidence is being gathered to support visa numbers for 2023.
The Seasonal Workers’ Scheme has attracted significant negative media attention in 2022, with reports of high fees being paid by some workers to agents in the labour supply chain to supposedly secure work. ALP has long warned of this risk highlighting deficient scheme design and rules, lack of collaboration by government and in the supply chain, and ineffective enforcement contributing to the alleged issues.
In May 2022 ALP published a detailed Proposal for the Seasonal Workers’ Scheme MultiStakeholder Worker Welfare Working Group. This highlighted 48 actions needed to address shortcomings in the Seasonal Workers’ Scheme. At the time of writing, progress is being made. For skilled workers, over 48,000 employers are now sponsors and able to use the Skilled Worker Visa route to recruit workers from overseas. The list of eligible skilled jobs includes a limited number in the food industry, including poultry processors and pork butchers. Labour providers are not permitted to sponsor workers under the scheme and supply them to clients, but many employer sponsors are engaging experienced labour providers to deliver a recruitment solution – sourcing and recruiting workers overseas to be employed by the sponsor employer directly. The ALP has formed the Skilled Worker Visa Industry Working Group to provide a collaborative space for current and potential food industry sponsors and recruiters to share experience, good practice, issues and learning and to form policy and collate questions and policy to raise collectively with the Home Office and others.
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Access to Labour
The EFRA Committee of MPs emphasised in the Labour shortages in the food and farming sector report that “The Government must radically shift its attitude and work together with the sector to devise solutions that speedily help address the problems it faces, in the short, medium and long-term to help the UK’s food industry and enable it to thrive”. The government rejected almost all the report recommendations and Chair of the EFRA Committee, Sir Robert Goodwill MP responded: The Government Food Strategy White Paper was largely silent on addressing food supply chain labour shortages other than the commissioning of an independent review to assess and ensure the quantity and quality of the food sector workforce, encompassing the roles of automation, domestic employment and migration routes. This review has now commenced. ALP’s policy paper Addressing UK Food Industry Labour Shortages details how labour supply challenges in the food supply chain will need to be addressed:
n Government must urgently adopt a coherent and comprehensive national strategy to enable future access to labour and skills
n Government departments and the food industry must work effectively and collaboratively to address immediate labour and skills shortages and remedy underlying causes
n Each individual food business must take responsibility to improve its working environment, terms of engagement and employer branding to effectively attract and retain workers.
ALP is an active member of the Food and Drink Sector Council Workforce and Skills Group whose objectives include developing an evidence-based strategy to help the food and drink supply chain become a more attractive industry for domestic workers to mitigate against future labour shortages and proposals to ensure that the industry’s labour market is flexible and responsive to changes.
“The government’s overall response to our recommendations is wholly inadequate. We continue to be concerned that labour shortages in the food and farming sector pose real risks of further price rises for consumers in supermarkets, reduced UK competitiveness and increased amounts of imported food.”
Fair Competition/Fair Charge Rates - Fair’s Fair
A core ALP policy priority is the payment of fair charge rates to labour providers that enable business sustainability and do not foster worker exploitation or tax evasion. “Fair’s Fair” is ALP’s ongoing ‘awareness and education programme to support the commercially sustainable procurement of agency labour so that workers never pay the price of poor purchasing practice.’ ALP has issued Charge Rate Guidance, ‘Calculating Charge Rates for Agency Labour’, ‘How Poor Procurement Practice is Driving Agency Labour Exploitation’ and the ‘Fair Procurement of Agency Labour Good Practice’ toolkits and introduced the RIPPPLine (Report Line for Illegal or Poor Procurement Practice). Find these and other resources to support fair procurement within your supply chain at https://www.labourproviders.org.uk/fairs-fair/.
GLAA and Labour Market Enforcement
ALP policy is to:
n Work in partnership with the GLAA to tackle labour exploitation n Work with the GLAA to ensure that its processes are fair and proportionate and that unreasonable burdens are not imposed on compliant operators n Challenge the GLAA where it is necessary and appropriate to do so.
Since November 2019, the ALP has continued to express its deep concern regarding the GLAA’s compliance operations. The GLAA launched a new Compliance Strategy in July 2021 and whilst broadly positive, the commitments lack specificity and in the intervening period the GLAA has failed to achieve them and its compliance activity has continued to diminish. The ALP laid out its concerns and suggestions for improvement in a comprehensive report titled “Re-Establishing a Credible GLAA Licensing Scheme” which was sent to the Director of Labour Market Enforcement and others. ALP sees no evidence that the GLAA Board or Executive is making any progress in re-establishing a credible GLAA licensing scheme. The GLAA rejected proposals by the ALP to form a working group to review the current GLAA performance statistics supporting the GLAA to more effectively measure and report its impact. Efforts to develop a new Food Supply Chain Protocol with the ambition to take a new approach to protecting vulnerable workers in the UK food supply chain through collaborative working have not been progressed by the GLAA.
A CADE MY
In July 2019, the Government consulted on proposals to create a single labour market enforcement body, which the ALP has long advocated for. In their June 2021 consultation response, the Government confirmed that the single enforcement body’s’ remit will include the prevention of labour exploitation and modern slavery, and the safeguarding of agency workers across all sectors, as well as the power to enforce payment of the minimum wage and holiday pay. The body will be subject to the usual government approval process and enactment of legislation and no developments have yet been seen on this.
Responsible Recruitment Due Diligence
The ALP since its inception has promoted ethical recruitment and good practice in labour provision. ALP labour provider membership includes: n A free ‘full’ subscription to the
ResponsibleRecruitmentToolkit.org online tool and unlimited online delegate training places n Stronger Together Tackling Modern Slavery toolkits and resources and Tackling Modern
Slavery in UK Businesses training for one delegate (renewing every three years) n A short, animated video to use in inductions explaining how to avoid problems, rights at work, and where and how to report issues n A free place on a two-hour online workshop:
‘Labour Provider Compliance – Due
Diligence to Ensure Good Practice’ run in partnership with the GLAA during which
ALP experts explain the issues and context, along with UK compliance requirements and enforcement, and provide: • A step-by-step process to achieve legal and ethical compliance in the provision and use of agency labour
• Clear guidance how to undertake effective due diligence to evidence compliance – both internally and in your labour supply chain
• The necessary resources and tools to support your journey The ALP Compliance Maturity Framework categorises GLAA licensed labour providers according to their level of engagement with the programmes that support compliance good practice. ALP records, monitors and reports progress against the Maturity Framework on a quarterly basis. The Maturity Framework engagement levels show improvement but indicate that there is much progress still to be made. ALP has also worked closely with leading B Corp, Fifty-Eight to develop the UK version of the Just Good Work app which enables labour providers to promote good recruitment and employment practices throughout their operations and supply chain by providing jobseekers and workers with consistent, accurate and practical information about working in the UK. Now available in a range of languages, Just Good Work is completely free of charge to workers who can download the app and make instant use of its advice and guidance and find out where to go for help if things go wrong.
Labour Provider Compliance Due Diligence to Ensure Good Practice
