FALSE: Our Rural team manages hundreds of properties that are occupied by businesses, which operate from rural places as it is convenient for the business’s managers and staff, rents can be lower and it can be a pleasant, attractive working environment.
We regularly surveyed our team, throughout England and Scotland, about the number of tenants who had asked for a reduction or holiday in the rent they are paying. We received very few applications from tenants for reductions or discussions about hardship. This is not to say that no businesses suffered due to COVID-19 but our experience was that we did not receive a significant number of hardship cases.
FALSE: Shelves were bare in some supermarkets in March and into April as shoppers panic bought and as food supply chains were disrupted. Pasta and toilet paper were in very short supply.
The food chain ultimately was resilient but the government has been criticised by the House of Commons EFRA Committee for being unprepared, despite having planned for other types of pandemic, and by other organisations for not having a coordinating mechanism for food policy.
The government closed the food service sector, and almost all other retail and service businesses, apart from a small number (nine) large retailers. That decision has been heavily criticised by Professor Tim Lang of City, University of London. Calling it an act of vandalism, he says there should have been a focus on creating community hubs so that food supply is more decentralised and that local authorities and existing restaurants cafes and markets are used more.
The pressure on food supply lead to a 2.5% increase in food prices during the first month of lockdown. The Institute of Fiscal Studies claims that this rise was largely reversed, with prices in the first week of August 2020 around 0.5% higher than at the beginning of the year.
FALSE: When it was clear that the UK could not rely on recruiting the 70-90,000 overseas workers that are usually needed to pick and process fruit and vegetables, the country called on the population to create a ‘Land Army’ to ‘Pick for Britain’.
An industry plan was unveiled at the government’s coronavirus briefing on 19th May. After a massive initial surge with tens of thousands of people trying to register on the Pick for Britain website, charity Concordia estimates that only 150 farm jobs were accepted by British workers in April 2020, following 50,000 initial expressions of interest.
The lifting of travel restrictions and opening of land borders allowed a significant number of experienced foreign workers to reach the UK, which is estimated to have cut the demand for UK workers to around 10,000. However, this was target was still hard to reach as many UK workers did not last long in the jobs due to the hours required and hard working conditions.
The government claimed that “roughly one third” of the sector’s labour needs had been met by UK workers in 2020. This has been criticised by the industry as an over statement. The National Farming Union estimates that 11% of 2020’s summer farm workers were from the UK, and a survey of British Summer Fruits members supports this. Despite the campaign, it was still foreign workers who picked for Britain.