I want to use some quotes here from the Association of Teachers and Lecturers union. I want to use them particularly because they’re not party affiliated, so that the obvious can’t come back from the other side. And they actually do state in their evidence that the use of agency workers in the public sector comes at an extremely high risk, and that it undermines the right of hard-working, taxpaying workers to exercise their right to withdraw their labour after fulfilling all the obligations that are already in place, and I think that is something that really hasn’t been spelt out here today. It almost seems that the Conservatives are trying to give the impression that people can just go on strike, and that people do just go on strike. They seem to also have forgotten a point that was made just now by my colleague Dawn Bowden: that the strike action costs those people who are employed within those industries, that they are losing their wages, and that people don’t want to come to the table, withdrawing their labour—which they have every right to do, having gone through due procedure—just simply on a whim.

It’s also worth noting that the majority of people who do deliver excellent services in the workplace that is the public sector are women, and it is women who will be disproportionately affected by the changes that are proposed by this trade union Bill. It’s also worth noting that the Government’s own Regulatory Policy Committee deemed the measures not fit for purpose, and that no full impact assessment of the trade union Bill had been made. I think it’s worth noting those things.

And I would ask the Cabinet Secretary, because there has been some confusion on the understanding of the words ‘agency workers’, to clarify for the record that we’re not talking about not allowing existing agency workers who already are used within the public sector—mostly, it has to be said, within the health sector—from coming into work like they would have under normal circumstances, but we are talking about, here, agency workers who are brought in for the specific purpose of breaking a strike.