Thanks very much for the union soundbite, Jack. I'm not a member of a union, nor do I particularly want to be, unfortunately.

But maybe this is the grand plan of Plaid Cymru; maybe they want to hoodwink the Welsh public into believing that they could work a day less for the same pay, but it can only be delivered by a Plaid-led independent Wales. Well, it's a fantasy, just like the one that Wales can survive without subsidies from the English taxpayer. The motion fails to mention that most of the pilots failed because they were unaffordable. Like the other socialist utopian pipe dream, universal basic income, four-day working is unworkable.

My biggest concern as shadow Minister for social services is the impact this would have on the care sector. We cannot fill the posts needed to provide good, safe care as it is, let alone increasing the workforce by a fifth. In August, the chief inspector at Care Inspectorate Wales put in writing what many of us have been saying for months—that the recruitment and retention of staff was one of social care's biggest worries: 'Our fear is that unless people come into the social care workforce, more and more people will end up in residential care earlier than they need to, or if they have multiple health issues, they'll end up in hospital.' Care homes are reporting posting daily recruitment ads, yet receiving not a single applicant. One care home boss reported:

'Staffing is dire. We haven't got enough people coming into the care industry and we've got people leaving in droves.'

It's so bad that hundreds of vacancies are posted every week. This is on top of the chronic shortages that were identified pre pandemic. Welsh Government admits that they need to recruit an additional 20,000 care workers by the end of the decade. That's just to stand still and doesn't count for the fact that a third of the workforce is nearing retirement age. If we were to sign up to  Plaid's latest social experiment, we would need an additional 10,000 staff tomorrow. Even the most vocal advocates of four-day working have to admit that that's impossible. Let's focus our efforts on fixing our care sector rather than try to turn Wales into some utopian fantasy land. I urge Members to reject Plaid's proposition, and support our amendments. Thank you very much.