Well, I think it's some jump to link the challenges over nurse rotas, where actually I played a part in getting the employer and trade unions back in the room to discuss matters and to resolve them, and to link the position now with the question on paying some of our poorest paid workers—a largely female workforce—in domiciliary care and residential care. I think that's just a leap too far.

I have always been committed to wanting to do the very best for our workforce in each part of the economy. It should be no surprise to you, not just as a Labour politician, but as a former shop steward myself who's been involved in pay negotiations, that I want to see people well paid. That's why the NHS continues to be a real living wage employer; it's why I made the moves I did on pay and terms and conditions where I am responsible for authorising and agreeing pay rates within the national health service. We have a commitment as a Government to want to see sectoral bargaining in other parts of our economy, and I think that would make a real difference in social care: it would provide some certainty.

We need to look at how that links into both commissioning at a national and local level, and we also need to do something about having the income to do so, because you know as well as I do that our ability to pay our staff properly does relate to the income that comes into our system. I think it's pretty difficult to have a much more sustained increase in the pay for social care staff without having more income coming in to do so, and that's why it's a very real consideration for us to use the powers that this national Parliament has, to use those in a way that would provide not just more money to go generally into social care, but what that means for our staff as well.

As I say, we were on the point of having that national conversation when the coronavirus pandemic struck, and all other forms of normal policy making had to take a backseat. So, the answer I gave to Huw Irranca-Davies remains, and my commitment through my whole entire political engagement remains to improving terms and conditions for workers right across the economy.