"It doesn’t have to be this way!" Nephrops fleet at biggest risk from visa changes

Seafish economists have published an evaluation of the potential impacts of changes to visa rules across several sectors of the UK fleet, with particularly stark implications for the profitability of sections of the Nephrops fleet.

Much of the prawn fleet has become reliant on international crew, with more than a third of the workforce in some ports estimated to be working under some sort of UK visa restrictions.

The changes include a large hike in the minimum salary for the skilled worker visa route, from £26,200 to £38,700 for crew who obtained visas after the regulations were changed, and the replacement of the Shortage Occupation List with a new Immigration Salary List, with a salary threshold of £30,960.

Seafish used its existing fleet data – informed by the annual Seafish Fleet Survey, which has just completed for 2024 – to assess the impact that the proposed changes could have on the UK seafood sector, looking at each sector individually.

The Nephrops over-12m fleet, where currently 82% of vessels rely on non-UK crew and the average salary is £19,222, is by far the most likely to be impacted. Seafish analysis suggests that for vessel owners with foreign crew, applying the new rules will be completely unprofitable, with annual operating losses estimated at between £41,000 and £83,000 per vessel.

Static-gear vessels, mainly the larger Channel crabbers, which also increasingly rely on crew coming from abroad – many of the previous EU crew in this sector have either left, or have not qualified for ‘settled’ status allowing them to work in the UK – will also suffer, as the current average salary paid to deckies in that sector is £28,297.

The third fleet with significant foreign crew, the larger demersal and beam trawlers, posted an average salary last year of £34,266, and so are less at risk.

With unsustainable projected losses of up to £83,000, many Nephrops boats are expected simply to tie up, or to look at alternative means of fishing. Many of the smaller Northern Ireland Nephrops fleet have already switched to single-handed fishing as a response to falling profits and crew difficulties.

For the over-12m Nephrops fleet, analysis suggests that prawn prices received by skippers would need to increase by a whopping 33%, with processors passing on price increases to retailers and caterers of around 15%, risking market share.

Responding to the analysis, Whitby Seafoods – together with Young’s Seafood by far the most significant buyers of prawn tails for the scampi trade – confirmed a commitment to raising prices for tails to the fleet, but noted how difficult it is to pass on price increases to retailers, with customers already struggling from several years of high food inflation.

“The changes in crewing costs highlighted by Seafish are impacting 75% of the boats landings to Whitby Seafoods,” a spokesperson for the company said. Whitby Seafoods is immediately increasing prices paid for tails ‘substantially’, with an additional premium paid to those vessels participating in the ‘In Transition to MSC’ scheme, designed to see scampi ultimately being MSC- accredited.

Whitby Seafoods managing director Daniel Whittle said: “Whitby Seafoods has taken significant steps to improve the viability of UK scampi, and our recent initiatives demonstrate the positive direction we are heading in. We’re proud to play a leading role in helping the sector adopt and implement measures which will ensure that the UK fishing fleet is safe and sustainable for generations to come.

“No one welcomes price inflation, but this should lead to an important step change in the scampi fishery.”

A series of five guides to help vessel owners and employers navigate the complicated maze of visa and employment rules are available to download from the Seafish website. You can also email any queries to: SkilledWorkerVisa@seafish. co.uk Copies of the latest impact assessment can be requested from the same address.

‘It doesn’t have to be this way!’

Open letter from Northern Ireland FPO to the prime minister, home secretary and fisheries minister

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

This story was taken from the latest issue of Fishing News. For more up-to-date and in-depth reports on the UK and Irish commercial fishing sector, subscribe to Fishing News here or buy the latest single issue for just £3.50 here.

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