Reacting to the Government giving overseas butchers a six month temporary visa, Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Food and Rural Affairs Tim Farron MP said: “It is groundhog day again as Ministers scramble to rush out another half-baked and inadequate visa scheme.
“If Ministers think the answer to the shortages we face is a handful of temporary visas for one sector after another, they are badly mistaken. They just can’t seem to learn from their mistakes.
“Businesses across the UK are suffering because of the Conservatives’ damaging new immigration rules, imposed in the midst of a pandemic. The answer must be to rewrite those rules and abolish the arbitrary distinction that rejects key workers such as care staff and HGV drivers as ‘unskilled’.”