Lee Anderson: make prisoners pick fruit and vegetables to solve UK’s labour shortage

© David Rose for The Telegraph Lee Anderson, pictured in his Whitehall office, has also argued food banks are being ‘abused by people’ – David Rose for The Telegraph

Prisoners should be made to pick fruit and vegetables to solve the UK’s labour shortage, Lee Anderson has said.

Mr Anderson, the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, suggested those “languishing” in jail could help tackle the lack of seasonal agricultural workers.

The MP for the Red Wall seat of Ashfield in Nottinghamshire also argued food banks are being “abused by people who don’t need the food bank”, as he led a debate on Wednesday.

Speaking in Westminster Hall, Mr Anderson said: “There is a problem in the agricultural sector with seasonal workers. I did have a solution but I was sort of shouted down when I first got to this place.

“We’ve got 90,000 people languishing in jails in this country and about 90,000 people short of picking fruit and picking vegetables. I think there’s a good start.

“So if we’ve got a labour shortage, we need to look inwards.”

Mr Anderson, a former miner who worked for Citizens’ Advice before entering Parliament, took aim at the “myth” that everyone claiming Universal Credit is living in poverty.

“Being on Universal Credit alone is not an indicator that a family is in poverty, but I do admit that some families in this country are struggling and they need support.

“What upsets me – it does get to me a little bit – we’ve got this culture now in some of these deprived areas where people now are so dependent on food banks it’s like a weekly shop for them.

“Food banks are abused by people who don’t need the food bank … Food bank use is increasing in places like Ashfield, we know that, yet obesity is increasing in the same areas. We’ve not had this proper culture in this country for decades about personal responsibility and feeding ourselves.”

He recalled working with one family in Ashfield who he said went to a food bank “two or three times a week” but would also go to their local branch of McDonald’s just as regularly.

Mr Anderson also contrasted abuse he received for claiming people can cook for themselves for as little as 30 pence a day with praise for celebrity chefs including Jack Monroe, who last year shared a recipe for a meal that cost just 11 pence.

“These people were celebrated, they were national heroes, but when a Conservative MP tries to help a food bank, tries to help people in his own community, he’s actually called ‘30p Lee’.”

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