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Many growers rely on seasonal workers from Eastern Europe

A government minister has denied claims that migrant workers are more likely to be employed in the food industry than British workers.

Employment minister and conservative MP Esther McVey responded to reports that some farmers cannot find enough British staff for seasonal work.

She said: 'No longer is it four out of 10 British nationals getting jobs, it's now nearly eight out of 10 British nationals getting those jobs.

'So I would like to think that farmers do feel they can take on British people, because we've got them to a standard where they are good enough to employ.'

But Yorkshire root vegetable grower Guy Poskitt said that his business could not survive without overseas workers. “We have some good local workers, but not enough of them,” he said, in an interview for Sunday Politics Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. 'If there was a limitation on the number of overseas workers, I would have to tell many of my customers that I could not deliver their orders.'

Figures from Eurostat, the EU’s official statistics provider, showed that 75.4 per cent of British citizens aged 20 to 64 were in work last year compared with 79.2 per cent of EU nationals living in the UK.

And recent figures revealed a rise in the number of EU citizens coming to the UK in 2013, although net migration remained unchanged, the BBC reported.