The flower and vegetable fields of East Anglia are lively with workers from Ukraine, Bellarus, Poland and the Czech Republic.

They're picking the flowers and lettuces that we take for granted at the florist and the supermarket.

There's a major labour shortage on these farms. Migrants fill the gap. And many are technically 'illegal'.

Give the migrants permits, says David Piccaver

Strange crime

But is it an artificial crime? Several farmers say the migrants should be legitimised. "We need them, and they need us".

David Piccaver, who runs Norfolk House Farm near Spalding, employs students from Eastern Europe. They have work permits. He wants the permits extended to include the so-called 'illegals'.

Another farmer told me it's 'quite common' to employ illegals, and hard to avoid.

Can't check them all

Daffodil grower Mark Scrimshaw uses middlemen (known as gangmasters) to recruit labour.

"If I don't get people to pull my flowers, I lose them"

"I always ask them if their workers are legal. And the answer is always Yes!"

Mr. Scrimshaw sometimes needs 200 people in a day to pull his daffodills. He can't check them all himself.

And he thinks it's hardly fair to call them 'bogus': they work very hard in often very foul, cold weather

New thinking needed

This is an important export business. And the migrant workers pay income tax.

The opinion is growing, in this very conservative part of Britain, that - as David Piccaver put it - "we should be more flexible about the movement of people".

Who will lift these lettuces?

Another argument is that strict immigration controls encourage settlement. It's so hard to get here, illegal migrants then stay.

Give them temporary permits, and they'd feel free to come and go according to demand.

The migrant workers can earn between �300 and �500 a week - they would take months to earn that back home in Ukraine or Bellarus.

Suspicion

Some locals in East Anglia are uneasy. "They come over here with their foreign languages and I don't like it," said one young man.

What did he think they might be saying? "Well you don't know, do you?"

"Let them work, that's what I say"

But Hillary Bills, a market gardener in Gedney Marsh near the Wash, thinks the foreign workers should be given permits.

The migrants spend some of their earnings in the village shop and the pub.

"So - give them permits and let them work, that's what I say."