The Minister knows that's not pay negotiations. She also said last week that she was meeting regularly with the Royal College of Nursing—that's not pay negotiations. The meeting that she has just referred to now is not pay negotiations. The last letter, I believe, that the Royal College of Nursing wrote to the Minister asking for pay negotiations was on 25 October. They still have not received a response to the letter that they sent to the Minister on 25 October.

I was struck with what the First Minister said yesterday. He said,

'all strike action ends in the end in negotiation', but, surely, it's better to do the negotiation in a timely manner. Having failed to sit down to negotiate to try to avoid a ballot, will Government now give nurses and the nursing profession the respect they deserve by sitting down with them to negotiate in a bid to avert strike action, which nobody wants, least of all the nurses themselves?