Examination of Witnesses (Questions 83-99)
Wednesday 7 May 2003
Mr Michael Paske, Mr
Bob Fiddaman, and Mr David Brown
Q83 Chairman: Mr Michael Paske, you
are the Vice President of the NFU. Would you like to identify
your co-conspirators.
Mr Paske: I certainly would, Mr
Chairman. On my right, can I introduce Bob Fiddaman who is the
Chairman of our Employment and Education Committee at the National
Farmers' Union, and, on my left, I have David Brown who is our
Chief Horticultural Adviser.
Q84 Chairman: Could I put a seditious
thought to you first, that here we have got a problem which everybody
knows about with very significant dimensions and everybody is
saying that it is all terribly, terribly awful and something ought
to be done, but I have not really identified, except perhaps the
legitimate gang masters, who has got a real interest in doing
something about it. The Government perhaps because it is losing
tax revenue, the farmers who, we have heard, may find it convenient
from time to time to avail themselves of these opportunities,
the packing houses who appear to be in the same situation, the
supermarkets who say that they at least appear not to be asking
questions when one might expect them to ask questions of the people
doing their supplying, and even the poor old illegal immigrant
perhaps is getting a few bob which he would not get otherwise
through the system, so is there not a sort of curious conspiracy
of complaisance right through the industry where everyone
thinks it is awful and nobody quite gets round to thinking that
it is urgent or awful enough to do anything about?
Mr Paske: Well, I hope in our
evidence, Mr Chairman, we will be able to show you that we are
very much in favour of doing something about this issue because
we represent what we hope are responsible employers and we do
want to make sure that any illegal activity which is going on
is stamped out and stamped out hard because the sort of things
you have been hearing about this afternoon, they are the sort
of things which, as far as we are concerned as responsible employers,
we just do not want to see happening. So I hope in our evidence
we will be able to show you that we are prepared to make a stand
on this issue and make sure that proper enforcement is put in
place and also ask you to use your influence to have a statutory
system put into place as quickly as possible.
Q85 Chairman: We think of these problems
notably in terms of the horticultural industry. Are there other
sectors of agriculture where either they are penetrating or you
fear that these practices, if they are unchecked, might start
to make their appearance?
Mr Paske: Certainly horticulture
is the biggest employer of casual labour in that sense, so obviously
it is an area which is of great concern to us horticulturalists.
Can I make it clear, Chairman, as I think you are aware, that
I am an asparagus grower and a horticulturalist and I have first-hand
experience of employing gang labour, but I think there are other
areas now where temporary labour is being taken on and we certainly
would like to see the same regulation being applied to that labour
as we are going to have in horticulture as well.
Q86 Diana Organ: I will probably
upset a lot of people, but I think asparagus is the only decent
English vegetable that we produce and the only one worth eating.
Can I make the point that my colleague pointed out to us when
Mrs Day left, that we found her extremely refreshing and the reason
why was that there she was as an employer who was prepared to
take the responsibility. She wanted the responsibility and welcomed
the responsibility of being given the onus of the people that
she employed and tracing them and where they are from. Does the
NFU have that same view because you have mentioned in the comment
back to the Chairman that you were hoping that the Committee would
so something in the regulatory framework as soon as possible to
stop this iniquitous system, but how much are your farmers prepared
to take on the same responsibility that Mrs Day wanted?
Mr Paske: We are prepared to take
on that responsibility and indeed do so already. As an employer
of horticultural labour, I can tell you that I have had codes
of practice involved in my business for the last 15 to 20 years
and the NFU has actually been pushing to have statutory legislation
brought in to be able to get some sort of proper system in place
for gang masters for many years, and I would like to ask David
Brown to actually give you some details of how long we have been
pushing for that particular issue.
Mr Brown: Certainly I have been
employed in the horticultural side of the NFU for 15 years now
and in those 15 years, we have consistently been asking for a
statutory register, a licensing system to underpin what we are
trying to do on a voluntary basis. We feel that MAFF, as was,
in the economic evaluation of Operation Gang master, slated what
we produced as a code of practice as having no teeth. By the nature
of a voluntary code of practice, it is unlikely to have teeth.
The NFU has no power to discipline, that is a rule of law, so
for 15 years we have been asking for this underpinning legislation.
Q87 Diana Organ: If you are saying
that the NFU does want to take responsibility and you want to
be responsible employers and that you are concerned about the
problem which is obviously getting worse and is obviously more
widespread than it was 15 years ago, we have more and more people
caught up in this illegal system, is it just farmers that are
members of the NFU then that are carrying this out? How much are
you asking your membership if they are using gang masters and
their dreadful practices?
Mr Paske: To answer your question,
we are very, very strict in terms of the fact that whenever we
hear of any illegal activities, we come down as hard as we can
and make sure that that is publicised because it does us no good
at all to hear of illegal practices going on, so we do come down
very hard on that. I come back to the fact that it is a question
of being responsible employers. Now, as I say, my company introduced
practices some 15 years ago or more to make sure that the gang
masters that we were using were complying with the law. Now, it
is up to every single employer in that situation to do the same
thing and what I am talking about there is doing regular checks
with the companies that they are using to supply them with their
labour to make sure that, first of all, the people are being paid
the right rates, to make sure that the people that are employed
are employable and they are not perhaps illegal immigrants or
indeed on social services or whatever it might be, but the fact
is that it is up to each individual. Now, you were talking earlier
on in your session this afternoon about the supermarkets. Now,
I supply 99% of the product that I produce to the supermarkets
and all of the supermarkets that I work for take a very great
interest in the way that we employ labour, so in fact they are
doing the checks and balances as well as I, so it is in my interest
to make sure that I have got everything in my house in order so
that when my customers, the supermarkets, come along and check,
they can see that we are doing all the necessary checks that we
are supposed to do.
Q88 Diana Organ: So if the NFU is
checking it and if your supermarkets are asking very pertinent
questions about the people employed, how come it is getting worse?
How come we do have so many people who are cooped up in horrendous
housing, who are not being paid anything like the national minimum
wage, who are illegal and should not be there, who are being exploited,
who are very vulnerable people who are frightened and we have
got a massive illegal system going on? It seems to me that you
are painting the picture that everybody is being responsible and
everybody is doing the checks, so where is it happening? What
evidence have you got of people who might be frightened to come
forward and tell about what is going on on the next-door farm
or in the next-door packing house?
Mr Paske: By the nature of what
you are suggesting, I think it is very, very difficult to find
out where there is illegal activity, but certainly from our point
of view where we are encouraging people to do all the checks that
they are supposed to do, if there is anything that is going on
which is illegal, we are very quick to find out about it and we
would never use those gangs again. I do not know, Bob, if you
want to add anything on that because you have had some experience
of this yourself, I think.
Mr Fiddaman: Well, mainly from
the point of view, Chairman, that there is plenty of anecdotal
evidence to say that there are problems with gang masters who
might be using illegal labour and the sheer problem of the fact
that you are not going to get overt evidence because of the fact
that it is illegal, so the people involved in the sense that they
are there because they are often in the country without the right
work permit are in a position where they cannot respond. A comment
was made by the previous lady from Farmforce about the potential
abuse of the SAWS scheme and I was particularly concerned about
that because it is not of a similar scheme to gang masters. It
is under a very limited operational activity and there are only
seven operators, of which two are multiples, and the others are
individual growers and they only get and retain their licence
having satisfied the Department of Work and Pensions or the Home
Office that they have fulfilled the contract that they have pursued.
I am, therefore, concerned to think that there is a perception
that those students are being misused. They come over on a very
limited timescale, on a very organised work permit, and there
was an agreement this year that the area of work that they could
go into should be enlarged from some of the traditional areas
like soft-fruit picking and areas like that where they were often
likely to be used. As you are probably aware, there is the intention
that the time period should be extended so that some sectors of
the industry that cannot currently get hold of short-term labour
for their particular industry, and obviously the poultry industry
is one that I consider as the Christmas trade market where there
is a great problem in the Christmas trade market, so that the
fresh market is suitably supported in labour. These students are
well organised and regulated through the current mechanism. Now,
that does not mean that someone might not attempt to abuse. If
there is an abuse of the system, then an employer who had booked
for X number of SAWS students and then is found to be abusing
that right because they are responsible for them in their business,
they do not have the right, unless they are a registered operator,
to pass them on to any other employer and it has to be done through
one of the two multiple operators that we currently have so that
they are properly followed and there is this very good return
rate. It is not 100% and we recognise that there is a slippage
of one or two people who still manage not to go back under the
work permit, but, in principle, it is a very robust system which
is why the NFU fully supported the fact that these operators should
be kept to a minimum and should be fully monitored and licensed.
Now, licensing is to come back to the point we are making about
the gang master. The operators are licensed and they can be traced
and followed and if we have the same solidity about the licensing
of the gang master system, then you will not remove every single
one abuse, certainly not in the early days, but you will certainly
put pressure on its reduction and if you start doing that, then
the opportunity to continue improving it must be, therefore, better.
That is why I support what has already been said, that we do need
a really robust licence which means that that gang master will
be no longer licensed and, therefore, our own producers will have
full recommendation from the NFU, "You will not use this
gang master because they are unlicensed". In that way, you
actually strengthen the system.
Q89 Diana Organ: I am a little bit
confused here because the message you are giving us about responsibilities,
informing on one another, the student system, the supermarkets
and all of that, that sounds to me like the problem that was or
is there is being tackled and is diminishing, but other people
are giving us evidence to say that the problem is getting worse
and is more widespread. The picture you have just painted in the
last few minutes is that there is not really an awful problem
and a little bit of licensing will solve it completely. Do you
think the problem is getting worse? Is it more widespread than
it was ten years ago and what evidence have you got of some horrors
that are going on?
Mr Paske: Well, perhaps I can
answer first and I can give you my own practical experience because
I think that is the best way. I have been employing labour since
about 1962 and some of that has been gang labour. In the early
days when I started employing gang labour, I knew that there were
abuses going on, so that is why, as I said to you earlier on,
I put checks and balances in place. As soon as I discovered that
any of the labour I was employing was illegal or whatever it might
be, I stopped dealing immediately with that source of labour,
that gang master, in other words. I now have two gang masters
that I use some 30 odd years later and I know from the experience
that I have had with working with those companies for a number
of years that I do have a reliable service, so in my own experience,
the problem has in fact receded in that sense and I am very happy
with the arrangements that I have with the two companies that
I use. I am afraid I have no real experience in terms of what
is happening in the rest of the country, but that is, I think,
a very good indication of what is happening in Lincolnshire which
is the area where I am operating. David, you have got experience
obviously of Kent and other parts of the country, so perhaps you
might tell the Committee.
Mr Brown: In response to the direct
question as to what evidence do we have that things are getting
worse or not, perhaps by the nature of it because we are talking
about abuse and illegalities, the information we have is not evidential,
but anecdotal. However, I am sure, as a committee, you will probably
be taking evidence from some of the enforcement agencies and certainly
in discussions with them we have been told of an increasing use
of forged documentation which is becoming extremely skilled and
they suspect and suggest there is quite serious criminal money
behind what is going on, which actually makes it very difficult
for growers who are still trying to run their business as well
to spot forgeries; they are not trained as immigration officials.
Anecdotally, we suspect it is getting worse and the fact that
the enforcement authorities are spending so much time, effort
and resource to raid farms, raid pack-houses and stop minibuses
would suggest to me that the enforcement authorities are also
not happy with the level of illegal activity, so although numerically
it is getting worse, I cannot prove it.
Q90 Mrs Shephard: And yet in the
written evidence you have given the Committee, you do say that
the problem has been getting worse and that there are more illegalities.
Now, I assume that you have based your evidence on something,
some facts, and it is not entirely anecdotal, I assume, but that
is what you say unequivocally. You give a great list of the evidence
that can be produced which, as you say, suggests a system in which
abusive, evasive and fraudulent activities are frequent. That
is what you say in your written submission to the Committee.
Mr Brown: We do say that hard
evidence is difficult to come by. These areas are areas where
there have been prosecutions and, therefore, you can guarantee
that there has been illegal activity in those areas. I have no
statistical data. I serve as part of the Ethical Trading Initiative
Working Group also looking into gang masters and through that
group we have consistently been asking for regular updates on
Operation Gang master, statistical information, so that should
become quantified, whether our suspicions are right.
Q91 Mrs Shephard: Can I ask you why
it is that we are now seeing many more people, foreign workers,
whether here legally or illegally, involved in the sorts of work
for which only 15 years ago in an area like mine they employed
local people or relatively local people or people from within
the county. What has happened?
Mr Paske: It is reluctance basically
for those people that you are describing to take on the sorts
of work that we can offer, which is surprising in some ways because
we have heard a lot this afternoon about exploitation, but a great
many of the gang workers that are employed are actually employed
on a piece-work basis where in fact there are substantial rewards
for people who work very hard, but unfortunately the days are
gone when people liked being out in the field in all weathers
harvesting crops, so that is why we are now finding that we are
getting more and more people coming in from overseas and indeed
why we have asked to extend the number of SAWS students that we
have available to us to be able to carry out that sort of harvesting
activity.
Q92 Mrs Shephard: I do not think
it is a matter just of taste, is it, or preference? It seems to
me that changing patterns of unemployment in rural areas is something
to do with it and that people, as you say, certainly now are choosing
to do indoor jobs, but there are plenty of indoor jobs. The next
conundrum is how many of the workers we now see employed on farms
come from elsewhere? Is it possible to know? I will not hold you
to account if you get it wrong.
Mr Paske: You are talking about
gang masters, are you, now?
Q93 Mrs Shephard: Yes. Does anybody
know?
Mr Paske: I do not think we do
know the answer to that, I am afraid, no.
Q94 Mrs Shephard: Now, this is a
question, this is an issue which in a sense we cannot discuss
because we do not know the size of it. I think most people would
agree that the exploitation which we have had described to us
this afternoon very sadly is mostly found affecting those people
who do come from overseas and yet because nobody has the numbers,
there is no way of finding out what they are, it is almost impossible
to discuss the problem and certainly its extent. You cannot throw
any light on all of this?
Mr Paske: No, but, David, I wonder
if you can help on this.
Mr Fiddaman: If I can pursue that
issue with you because having just completed a round of wage negotiations
on behalf of the employers through the Wages Board, it has been
one of the issues that we have been discussing over the last two
or three years in some depth because the census data is one day
in a year, as you are well aware, which is a June date and within
that terminology of the way the census is taken, it says, "casual
is anybody who is not a member of your regular workforce",
so it picks up a number. That number does not reflect, if you
like, the sort of casual worker that we might consider in the
piece-rate mechanism where they are harvesting soft fruit and
crops like that where that is a real casual because they will
only be there while the harvest activity is in action. In fact
this year's negotiation has specifically developed a mechanism
to recognise that worker and any other worker is, therefore, of
a standard provider and, therefore, guaranteed a higher rate of
pay at a standard hourly rate because the piece-rate mechanism
will often allow the harvest worker to earn as much if not more.
The figures we have been trying to look at, we cannot and we have
not been able, through all DEFRA's best endeavours, to have anything
other than a gentle stab at what the issue is about. Now they
are collecting at last quarterly data to see how the hours and
earnings system relate, but it is still not actually picking up
the sorts of numbers of people that you are obviously talking
about. Quite frankly, it is something that we would all benefit
from having a better understanding of, not least because then
the industry can actually promote itself in the potential possibilities
because if you do not have an idea because the figures are not
there, then you cannot promote yourself as a potential useful
employment service which we wish to see the industry survive.
Q95 Mrs Shephard: So clearly you
would welcome more information and your view would be shared by
those who flout the provision of public services, where there
are large numbers, say, of workers whose numbers cannot be quantified
exactly, but who are using the Health Service, are being housed
and do need help in all kinds of ways, but because their numbers
are an official mystery, the help cannot be provided because it
cannot be planned for?
Mr Paske: Can I add to that please
by pointing out that pack-house labour very often does not even
fall within the agricultural census because they are not employed
as agricultural workers. Again the gang masters provide a lot
of labour to pack-houses, as you are I am sure aware.
Mrs Shephard: Yes, and of course although
here we are concerned with agricultural employment, there is no
question that there is extensive employment of people from elsewhere
in other kinds of manual jobs and manufacturing of all sorts.
Q96 Mr Jack: Just to follow up Mrs
Shephard's line of enquiry, I got the impression certainly from
the early part of your evidence that there is a certain element
of turning a blind eye to what was going on because, Mr Paske,
you know the horticulture industry intimately and I guess that
if I asked you to draw up a list of the people who are most likely
to need seasonal labour of one sort or another, you could very
quickly put a list together.
Mr Paske: Yes.
Q97 Mr Jack: And I suspect that if
you picked up the telephone to some of the people who would be
on your list, you might get a lot of the evidence which we are
getting the impression at the moment is not available about the
extent of the use of questionable gang master labour. Is this
not because it is a necessity of life that people have got to
get the labour wherever they can and, therefore, they do turn
a blind eye to some of the practices that we have heard about
this afternoon?
Mr Paske: No, and I will tell
you why I say that, Mr Jack, with some confidence. It is because
where people have built up a relationship with their gang master,
as I say, they know them and they can trust them. What happens,
however, under those circumstances you have just described is
that there is some sub-contracting that goes on and I think that
that is an area which obviously needs to be looked at very carefully,
and again in my own business I do that and in fact I will not
accept any sub-contracted labour unless we have done the same
checks that we do with our main contractor.
Q98 Mr Jack: But it is quite clear
that some people, therefore, are not as legitimate or as scrupulous
as clearly you are, but—
Mr Paske: But that is an opportunity
of how that does happen and I can see that, so I hope that answers
your question.
Q99 Mr Jack: I hear that, but I just
wonder how much pressure there is from within the membership of
the NFU to sort this problem out because you, as the officers
or office-holders, are taking a very legitimate and very responsible
view. Now, it is interesting just how quickly the NFU can get
its act together, for example, when a threat of product-dumping
comes along. You are out of the blocks like an Olympic sprinter.
You have got all the evidence, you are in to see the Minister,
saying, "Stop this abuse. Our livelihoods are threatened".
You are there and you have got all the facts, all the ducks lined
up, bang, bang, bang, and the poor, hapless Minister has got to
do something. Now, on this, the evidence says, "Well, we
have been working at it for years and we don't know what's going
on", so I do not get the impression that there is real pressure
from within the Union to get this job sorted out.
Mr Paske: Mr Jack, there is huge
pressure, but dare I turn the tables and say that politicians
are constantly telling me that there is not sufficient time in
Parliament to put the necessary statutory powers in place and
that is the excuse that I get on that side.
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