FOOD producers in Scotland could be badly hit by Home Office plans to cut drastically the number of low skilled migrant workers.

A leaked draft proposal has raised fears about the impact on the agriculture industry if migrant numbers are cut after Brexit.

A warning that any sudden reduction in workers from the EU could have serious consequences for farming has now been made by NFU Scotland President Andrew McCornick.

Fruit farmers in Scotland rely on migrant workers and McCornick, who farms near Dumfries, said abbatoirs could also be hard hit.

“I was in one in Stirling last November and about 80 per cent of the work force in there was not local, was sourced outwith the UK.

“If these people aren’t there to do the processing there is not a market going to be able to deal with what we are producing.”

He said that while migrant workers initially came across for a season, many ended up becoming an important part of the economy.

“A lot of them come across as seasonal workers but then it develops into something longer,” he said.

“If they enjoy the job, they are getting well paid and they are fitting in well into what is going on round about them, a lot of them will stay on.”

McCornick said he wanted to see more details of the plans set out in an 82 page paper marked “extremely sensitive” and leaked to the Guardian newspaper this week.

The document proposes tough restrictions on all but highly skilled EU workers with measures to cut the number of low skilled migrants, including offering them residency for a maximum of just two years. Highly skilled workers would be allowed to stay for three to five years.

A new system would be phased in ending the right to stay in the UK for most European migrants and there would be restrictions on their rights to bring in members of their families, potentially leading to thousands of families being split up.

“It is not a question of stopping EU migration … But there will be a fundamental shift in our policy in that the government will take a view on the economic and social needs of the country as regards migration, rather than leaving this decision entirely to EU citizens and their employers,” says the Home Office document.

However the proposals are likely to anger EU negotiators who have already accused the UK of treating European nationals as second-class citizens. Retaliation by the EU could affect UK nationals living in Europe.

There are an estimated 181,000 EU nationals in Scotland. Half of the net increase in the Scottish population between 2000 and 2015 has come from people born in EU countries and 80 per cent of EU nationals in Scotland are of working age, compared to 65 per cent of the Scottish population as a whole.

Around a third (31 per cent) are in unskilled “elementary” occupations which include unskilled agricultural workers, construction workers, hospital and kitchen porters and cleaners.