Given the labour shortages facing the food and farming sector, we are surprised that the Government chose to ignore its own Migration Advisory Committee’s (MAC) advice on which roles should be added to the Shortage Occupation List (SOL). While we note the Minister for Safe and Legal Migration’s argument that adding roles to the SOL is not as impactful as it once was for better-paid roles such as pork butchers, it is likely to have been helpful for other lower paid roles. Furthermore, if the Government is correct that it would have made no difference then there was no downside in adding those roles to the SOL. Indeed, it would have been a powerful signal to food and farming businesses that the Government was doing everything possible to help the sector. We recommend that the Government immediately add the food and farming roles that were contained in its MAC’s September 2020 recommendations to the SOL. We also recommend that the MAC use its power to initiate its own inquiries to review the labour needs of the food and farming sector.