The UK food industry should cover the upfront costs faced by migrant farm workers if it wants to keep access to the overseas labour it relies on, the government’s advisers on migration have said.

Farm workers coming to the UK are at risk of debt bondage because they often borrow money to cover flights and visas without knowing what they will earn, a report by the independent Migration Advisory Committee found.

To maintain current levels of food production, there was no immediate alternative given a lack of willing UK recruits to the seasonal worker scheme (SWS), the report published on Tuesday said, urging ministers to give industry certainty over the scheme’s future.

However, the report also said the industry and government had not done enough to stamp out abuses of workers’ rights in a scheme where they faced “an inherent imbalance of power” against employers…

…workers also need more certainty over how much they will earn, the committee added, calling for a guarantee of at least two months pay, to ensure they could recoup the costs of coming to the UK.

It urged the industry to accelerate action to move to an “employer pays principle”, so that recruitment and relocation expenses are borne by employers rather than workers…