The CEO of Northern Ireland Fish Producers Organisation has written to the Prime Minister and ministerial colleagues on the issue of visa changes for international crew and the consequential ramifications.
The ongoing issue of Transit Visas and Skilled Worker Visas for international crew continues to cause issues across the UK fleets, including for the Northern Irish nephrops catching sector.
Whitby Seafoods Ltd has taken the commercial decision to uplift prices paid to the catching sector for nephrops tails as part of the solution underpinning community sustainability, but this requires seafood retailers to engage and support the supply chain to avoid more fishermen loosing their livelihoods.
In a perverse dynamic, the recent increases in payments may have the opposite effect of assuring long-term higher wage rates, instead triggering an emerging position that long-term international workers may shortly be ending their contracts, potentially not to return.
Consequentially, the drive for visa amendments by some sections of civil society and union advocacy may have the effect of causing wide-spread hardship, job losses and dependent debt bondage for international fishing crew, if not urgently addressed by the Labour Government under Sir Kier Starmer.
Open Letter
Dear Sir Keir Starmer, Yvette Cooper and Daniel Zeichner,
Seafish’s analysis should be sobering reading for your new government. Growth is your flagship economic policy; food security is another. The stark reality, according to one of your own non-departmental public bodies, is that unless you take immediate action on labour supply issues, the £120m-worth of food sourced from Northern Ireland and Clyde fleets and sold into the UK market will be lost in months.
Without immediate action, we’ll see our industry’s economic contribution contract, not grow. We’ll see the last bastion of UK fish, sold in UK supermarkets, disappear, and we’ll see our hardworking fishing communities, all of whom are looking to you for positive change, suffer because of it.
The previous government’s actions made it very clear they were prepared to sacrifice the prawn fishing industry on the altar of looking tough on immigration. The general election showed them just what happens when you put posturing ahead of pragmatism. If, however, your new government can immediately apply some common-sense pragmatism, then it’s not too late, and there remains a last opportunity for you to help the prawn fishing industry play its part in economic growth, in enhancing our food security and helping our fishing communities to thrive.
And it can all be done with the introduction of a visa mechanism appropriate to fishing, that recognises that if UK-produced food is to be competitive on UK supermarket shelves, then artificial and arbitrary salary caps over and above National Living Wage is a form of self-harm for economic and food security.
Simply put, if you care about UK food on UK shelves, if you care about food inflation and cost of living impacts, if you care about vibrant coastal communities, then entry-level food production jobs need to be able to pay National Living Wage, and fishing businesses need to be able to operate inside 12nm with overseas crew.
Our price elasticity curves are already stretched to breaking point. The answer isn’t just to make the consumer pay more. If you care about these things, the answer must now come from you.
The prawn fishing industry in Northern Ireland and the Clyde quite literally has only months before the chickens of the last government come home to roost and more of our businesses close. Our message is clear: it doesn’t have to be that way! You can prevent it!
The industry’s net zero migration proposal for addressing visa issues while improving crew welfare standards has been on Home Office and Defra desks since before you took office. There is a pathway out of this crisis that joins up minor visa rule tweaks with industry self-help and fresh welfare initiatives. But to get there we need dialogue, not silence.
The last government failed us, but you can show you’re different. We’re doing our part, but if you want growth, then you need to do yours too. Please, please, answer our letters, pick up the phone to industry, and let’s start working in partnership.
Harry Wick Chief executive Northern Ireland FPO
Related News
Fishing News 30 September 2024: “It doesn’t have to be this way!” Nephrops fleet at biggest risk from visa changes.
ENDS.
Source: HRAS International.
Image: David Hammond 2024
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