Defra’s surveys of workers on the UK’s agricultural Seasonal Worker visa reveal serious questions about elements of the scheme. At what point will these finally be enough for change?

The Seasonal Worker Scheme (SWS), which was first introduced as a pilot in 2019, is a highly restrictive visa route that is used to recruit workers into horticulture and poultry roles in the UK. Throughout the entirety of its operation (including as far back as 2018), when the pilot was first announced), serious concerns have been raised by workers on the scheme, as well as by civil society, inspectors, and parliamentarians about how the structure of the scheme creates serious risks of abuse and exploitation for the workers using it. Factors which create these risks include the short term nature of the visa, recruitment debt, lack of guaranteed work over the duration of time in the UK, uncertainties about changing employers in practice, a lack of monitored and enforced accommodation standards, and the lack of access in practice to employment complaints mechanisms and redress. 

Every year since 2019, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has conducted surveys with workers that have been to the UK on the SWS, with surveys distributed and collected by the worker’s sponsor (known as their scheme operator). The most recent release of summary data from these surveys was published last week, covering responses from workers that were in the UK in 2024. Defra have stated that they recognise the “importance of monitoring and understanding the experiences of seasonal migrant workers so that measures can be taken to reduce these risks.”

However, Defra’s own survey data raises serious questions about if and how findings which highlight gaps in the scheme are acted upon. 

For some issues, there have been concerning findings present in their data over multiple years. Take for example complaints procedures (though there are also major concerns on other issues, such as, debt, transfer processes, and access to medical care). Defra, in their 2024 survey, state that “if a seasonal worker is unhappy with their employment, or life on farm, it is important they can access a complaints’ process they trust.” But Defra’s own data has consistently shown that many workers have not been able to access effective and safe complaints processes, with issues around this being highlighted in every Defra survey release since 2020 (workers were not asked about complaints in the 2019 review of the scheme). This is especially concerning in the context of long standing concerns that issues identified in the scheme are not acted upon, including as highlighted by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration in their 2022 review of the scheme.

The exact wording of complaints related questions vary across Defra surveys, however, reported outcomes have been similar across each year a survey has been published. In the 2020 and 2021 Defra surveys, almost half of all those that reported raising a complaint during their placement said that their complaints were not followed up (2020:48%, 2021:44%). For the 2022 survey, the question was changed to ask if the worker raised a formal complaint, but results were similar, with only two in five (42%) saying that their complaint was followed up on. This is also true for 2023 and 2024 results, where workers were asked if they made a formal complaint about a grievance, with two in five that raised a complaint reporting that their complaint was not followed up on (2023:41%, 2024:37%).

These figures raise the question as to what findings would be necessary for the UK government to look into matters raised in the survey further? As even when their own survey repeatedly receives feedback year after year that complaints are not followed up on, no major structural changes have been made to the scheme to rectify this risk of exploitation.

It is also important to note, that if anything, some of the above mentioned figures may be underreported. Surveys are distributed by the worker’s sponsor. As Defra themselves state, workers “depend on the scheme’s operators (who distributed the survey) to access work and may therefore have been reluctant to provide negative feedback.” 

While there have been some changes to the scheme since it was piloted in 2019, these have been small and incremental and have not focused on resolving the underlying factors that create risks of exploitation for workers. Consequently, changes such as introducing a minimum 32 hour week (averaged over the worker’s pay period) seem to have moved issues with the scheme around, rather than resolving risks which result from indebted workers having few options to challenge poor conditions. This lack of action by the UK government continues to put workers at risk of exploitation. 

As highlighted in FLEX’s recently published Blueprint on safer and fairer migration for low-paid work, workers’ vulnerability to labour exploitation is not intrinsic, but is instead constructed by a range of factors, including government policies and procedures. The UK Government needs to deconstruct the policies that create risks for workers on the scheme, to ensure that they access rights in practice and enjoy decent standards of working and living conditions. To uphold the rights of workers, the scheme must be overhauled in its entirety, including by drastically improving independent monitoring of the scheme as well as acting on findings, increasing labour market enforcement, creating pathways for redress which are accessible in practice, and ensuring the visa structure enables access to rights for the workers who use it.