Multi-talented businessman Patrick Lewis was the guest speaker at the Herefordshire Conservative Business Forum held at The Harewood End Inn.

Born and bred in Herefordshire, Patrick has developed and grown several businesses since being invited to be the Manager of Gamber Growers, a potato-growing co-operative of local farmers, in 1988.

Gamber Logistics and Gamber Cleaning followed. Other businesses run from the base at Pengethley Farm have included a haulage operation, packing sprouts for grocers, peeling vegetables for hospitals and the retail trade, a farm shop, supplying potatoes for Tyrell’s Crisps, caravan and container storage, poultry litter and cleaning services and anaerobic-digester cleaning.

Patrick said: “Herefordshire farmers are significant ambassadors for their industry, with many producing high-cost crops that are a gamble and uninsurable. All are weather dependent but are also very dependent upon customers and labour.”

He said he, and many others in hospitality, care, health care, agriculture and horticulture were dependent on foreign labour. Some 80 per cent of his employees were foreign, he explained and he had been lobbying MPs and MEPs to highlight the problem after Brexit.

Patrick explained that although he advertised in the UK press, he did not get any response from English workers, despite paying over the minimum wage. To stay in business, he, and many others, were dependent upon foreign labour.

Anthea McIntyre, Conservative MEP for the West Midlands, commented that post-Brexit: “It is highly likely that we will have a scheme similar to the seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme (SAWS) that we have had before. However, we also need workers that are not just seasonal but fill all year round jobs. We need to control immigration but also to encourage workers to do these jobs”.

Winding up the event, local MP Jesse Norman praised Patrick as “an awe inspiring entrepreneur who has a great skill in making his presentation funny as well as fascinating.”