 I ask members and those in the public gallery leaving to do so as quickly and as quietly as possible. The next item of business is a member's business debate on motion 6216, in the name of Katie Clark, on higher education workers' dispute. The debate will be concluded without any questions being put. I invite members wishing to participate to press the request-to-speak buttons now or as soon as possible. I call on Katie Clark to open the debate around motion 7. It is a pleasure to speak to this motion on the higher education workers' dispute and to put on record my thanks to all members who gave it cross-party support. As the motion notes, at several universities, there has already been strike action in recent months, and many more staff are currently being balloted across the country. The most recent unison strike took place on 4 October, when unison members—mainly cleaners, administrators, libraries, catering, security and support staff—took part in action. Further action is due to take place on dates later this month at Edinburgh Napier, Glasgow Caledonian and Robert Gordon. They will be joined by EIS, University Lectures Association and the University and College Union members, who all have strike dates in November. The UCU action will be at every single of the 17 Scottish institutions on three dates later this month and will involve up to 8,000 members. Further ballots are on going at many other institutions, including the University of West Scotland in the West Scotland region that I represent. Unite is also balloting their 2,000 members across 11 institutions. We are facing disruption at universities across Scotland, with staff, many of whom are on low pay taking action despite the loss of income that will involve for them. Of course, students are being impacted. University of Glasgow members were also on strike, but earlier this month accepted a breakthrough pay deal that will see overall pay rises of between 6 and 12.9 per cent this year, and the lowest paid there are now set to receive a £2,332 pay increase. However, the University and Colleges Employers Association said that they have made their final offer to staff, a below-inflation pay award of 3 per cent for most higher education workers and a 3 to 9 per cent award for some of the lowest paid. Given the rate of inflation, those are real terms pay decreases. Those strikes are about pay but also about other terms and conditions. The UCU held two ballots, one for strikes on pay and conditions and one for strikes on pensions. In the paying conditions ballot, 81.1 per cent voted yes on a 57.8 per cent turnout, and in the pensions ballot, the yes vote was higher, 84 per cent on a 60.2 per cent turnout. UCU said that the cuts to pensions on average are of in the region of 35 per cent and are going ahead despite them being based on an outdated valuation of the pension fund. UCU also estimates that, in the jobs that they organise in the sector, pay has been cut by about 25 per cent in real terms since 2009, and Unison estimates about a 20 per cent cut for their members during the same time period. About one-third of university staff in Scotland and across the UK are on precarious fixed-term contracts, and some of those workers have been on those contracts for upwards of 30 years. The average working week in education is now over 50 hours, and UCU Scotland said in a survey that they conducted in June 2021 that 76 per cent of respondents report an increase in workload during the pandemic. A further more recent UCU survey from March this year found that two thirds were considering leaving the sector due to poor pay and conditions. In response to debates of this nature, Scottish ministers normally say that institutions are independent, and the terms and conditions of the staff there are not the responsibility of the Scottish Government. However, the Scottish Government provided more than £1 billion in funding to Scottish universities last year. Those institutions are substantially funded by Government, and the sector generates income. The UK sector generated income of £14.1 billion last year. It is estimated that Vice-Chancellars themselves took pay packets of an estimated £45 million, so, for example, the University of Edinburgh principle is reported to have a salary of an estimated £363,000 a year and the principle of the University of Glasgow £368,000 per year. Education is fully devolved, and the Scottish Government has responsibility for the model. The model in our higher education system in Scotland is one of endemic low pay, poor conditions, excessive executive remuneration, casualised contracts and the marketisation of the sector. I urge the Scottish Government as a major funder of the sector in Scotland to get directly involved in these immediate disputes, to urge universities and the University and Colleges Employers Association to take part in meaningful steps to negotiate a fair resolution to these disputes, to ensure that the Fair Work Convention is the minimum standard for accessing Scottish funding, council funding and to look at how the Fair Work Convention can be strengthened and to investigate and report to this Parliament on employment conditions in the education sector and the higher education sector in particular as a priority. We have a system where students are treated as consumers, where many workers in the sector are paid a piscence on temporary contracts, while vice-chancelors award themselves record pay packets. It is unsurprising that workers up and down the country are demanding improved pay and conditions, but the Scottish Government cannot stand back and claim to be bystanders in these disputes. It funds Scottish universities to the region of over £1 billion each year and has a responsibility to ensure that staff there are paid well, have proper employment practices and that the universities themselves who are provided with funds act as good employers. Thank you very much, Ms Clark. We now move to the open debate. I call first Graham Day to be followed by Michael Marra for up to around four minutes, Mr Day. Many thanks, Presiding Officer. Industrial disputes are by their nature, as we are all too well. They are very messy and often unpleasant affairs. A mixture of overambitious ill-judged, seemingly entrenched positions taken at the outset, when everyone knows that ground will have to be and will ultimately be ceded by the protagonist. Right now, with so many employment sectors, we are understandably pressing for increases that address spiralling inflation levels. When it comes to attracting support and sympathy from the public for pay claims, the landscape is pretty congested. We have a number of public sector disputes rumbling away UK-wide, and the brutal truth is that sympathy for the likes of nurses and firefighters will perhaps be greater than for university staff and others. That is absolutely not to say that the group is not deserving of a fair but affordable pay increase that takes account of the cost of living far from it. It is simply an observation. The fact is that universities do not function, students do not secure their education without cleaners, administrators and library catering and security workers. Never mind the teaching staff. That is why I am certain that the Scottish Government will be actively encouraging Scotland's universities to engage with the unions and apply the fair work principle. They are, as Katie Clark acknowledged, autonomous bodies. Among other things, universities need to be alive to the public relations damage done them by protracted disputes with staff, especially where they have parallel issues running, such as the pensions issue impacting non-teaching staff at Dundee. I do not think that there is any aspect of industrial relations where fairness is quite to the fore of the minds of the public than when it comes to pensions. Having come from the background, I am certainly instinctively inclined towards the cause of employees who are opposing seeing their pension expectations threatened. In another life, for 30 years, I worked in journalism where it was not just the Maxwell scandal that left its mark. We also saw long-serving, far from well-paid journalists having non-contributive pension schemes removed and the legitimate terms and conditions of others labelled pension liabilities, as if they were unreasonable burdens, not the entitlements matched to many years of sterling service. I do not think that there is a slightest doubt that the initial approach by the university of Dundee to the superannuation scheme was cack-handed, to say the least. Attacking the pension rights of staff who are a long way from being the best remunerated in the institution is not a good look, especially when those are predominantly women. The gender worse served by some way by pension provision. In fairness, I get the concerns of the university court over the growth of pension, what is called responsibilities, and the increase in employer contributions. That was the kind of ill-judged starting position that I referred to earlier. We have seen some progress, not as much as staff might want or be content with, but progress. Now we need to see that being built upon and similar momentum taking hold in the salaries front at Dundee and across the sector, with both sides. As I said earlier, recognising that ground will have to be seeded. Thank you very much indeed, Mr Day. I now call Michael Marra to be followed by Stephen Kerr for around four minutes, Mr Marra. I declare an interest as a member of the USS Pension scheme from a 15-year work in the Scottish higher education sector. I want to thank Katie Clark for bringing this motion for debate today. I am happy to give as she knows that the full backing of Scottish Labour's education policy in terms of particularly I think the very sound recommendation that funding delivered through the Scottish Funding Council and via the Scottish taxpayer should be guaranteed on the baseline, frankly, of a fair work convention. Actually, the university should be adhering to that. I think it's a very sound suggestion that the minister should address that in his remarks. It's absolutely right that employers get back around the table on all of those disputes and the disputes that Katie Clark has highlighted in her remarks and also the dispute that Mr Graham Day has highlighted. We do know that pay disputes across the public sector are being driven by a global economic climate that, frankly, has only been worsened in the UK by the grotesque incompetence of the Conservative Government, who are just today in Parliament trying to ask citizens across the UK to pay the cost of their right-wing ideological economic fantasies. It's staff in our universities whose situation we are debating here are, of course, victims of that incompetence, too. The impact of inflation is now compounded by the tax hikes and service cuts just announced by the chancellor in the last hour. We have to ask our universities, of course, to recognise that climate, and they must strain every sinew to find the resources to strike the right pay deal for our lecturers and support staff right across Scotland. Their work is absolutely crucial, not just to today in terms of the students they work with, but to the future of our country. I have to say that industrial relations across the sector, as highlighted by other members, are indeed strained, and, as a Dondonian, it has become a matter of great concern. Frankly, as a long-term former employee of the University of Dundee, it is a shameful sight to see that industrial relations have deteriorated to the level that they have. Those pension cuts to the lowest-paid and predominantly female workforce are completely unacceptable. The management must be round the table with all of the campus unions and they should do so immediately. However, we must also recognise in this debate that the Scottish Government and what the Scottish Government have done to increase the budget pressures on our universities. The resource spending review slashed the funds to tertiary education in the years to come by 8 per cent with, as yet, no indication as to the balance of those cuts between colleges and universities. That means that universities do not yet know the real scale of the cuts that they will face and how they may be able to plan their future workforce and the projects and the investment that they have to make. It makes planning impossible and the minister should be providing that clarity as soon as possible. However, it is not just a short-term issue of recent months. The Scottish Government has provided no increase in the funding of Scottish student education for 13 years. The balance sheet of Scottish universities are deeply worrying as a result. Most Scottish universities, it is fair to say. That is reflected in the comparative performances of our universities. I have covered this in the chamber on numerous occasions now in recent breadth. The universities in Scotland are not improving at the pace of universities across the UK. In the Times Higher Education World, university rankings just published yesterday, there will be three outstanding Scottish universities in the world's top 200. A decade ago, that number was five. That is a reflection of the direction of travel in Scotland and a very worrying one for the future of our country. The people who make that success possible are the very employees whose working conditions we are here to discuss today. In Scottish Labour calls for new negotiations and a deal for all those workers that protects the workers' futures and the future success of Scotland. Thank you, Mr Marra. I now call Stephen Kerr to be followed by Mercedes Villalba around four minutes, Mr Kerr. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. First of all, I note the contents of the motion and find myself broadly in agreement with what is fundamentally being said in this debate, which is that the university principals and administrations should get together with the representatives of their workforces and resolve this dispute, because at the heart of all of these matters is the interests of the generation who are now depending on the good work that is being done in our universities and colleges, not only for their own individual success, but for the future success of our country. I listened to Michael Marra, for whom I have enormous respect, and would gently suggest to him that perhaps he should check the detail of what the chancellor actually said, particularly the commentary of the OBR. Katie Clark is absolutely right when she talks about education being wholly devolved. Therefore, any issues that we address in this debate respecting the performance of the Government in their lack of public investment over a decade, that is what the minister needs to respond to, not? Would he recognise, though, that fundamentally this is an industrial dispute about industrial relations related to matters around pay terms and conditions, which are inextricably interlinked with employment law, because we do not have control over what remains in the hands of the UK Government? Stephen Kerr, I give you the time back. It is intrinsically interlinked with the fact that this Government has been underfunding the further and higher education sector in this country for 10 years. That is the framework in which these issues are being addressed. That is a wholly devolved matter. The book stops with this Government and this minister in particular. The fact is that this sector, upon which we all depend for our future prosperity, needs greater levels of sustainable funding. For far too long, we have seen the Scottish National Party Government neglect the further education and higher education sector. Because of that, budget cuts, year after year, we have seen cuts to the numbers of college students across Scotland, a cap on the number of Scots permitted to attend universities. We have seen the university sector having to go across the globe, sometimes involving themselves in what I can only describe as dubious international schemes to raise money, potentially undermining the independence and integrity of those very institutions, many of which are world-class. We are now seeing this contribute to the strikes by lecturers and other staff at Scottish universities and colleges who are concerned about their pay working conditions and pensions. Since 2010, in real terms per student university funding, funding has fallen by 9.4 per cent. Those are the Scottish Government's own figures. I have written a question that I submitted, S6W-01165. The cabinet secretary told me that 2010-2011, the average university student funding was £6,525 in real terms, and the figure now is £5,703. The effect of those cuts is clear. The fact that funding from the fees of international students is set to overtake the funding that the Scottish Government makes available to Scotland's universities next year is evidence of the fact, as the University of Scotland has made clear, that now those international students' fees are across subsidising Scottish students' places and the teaching budgets of those institutions of higher education. We have also seen the effect of the Scottish National Party spending cuts on Scotland's colleges. The principle of Glasgow Calvin College has said that 80 per cent of accessible income or revenue is spent on staff costs. I am running out of time by reiterating that, as Scottish Conservatives believe that the university principles, I would love to, but I do not know if I am allowed. You are winding up at the moment, Mr Kerr. I apologise. I like to take interventions, as I think the chamber knows. The Scottish Conservatives believe that the university principles and the representatives of their employees need to get around the table, but the Scottish Government needs to take responsibility for the consequences of the decisions it has made based on some form of hierarchy of political priorities. Scotland's universities should be the envy of the world. Our reputation as a country stands on our higher and further education. It is time that the Scottish—the SNP Scottish Government—gave proper funding priority to Scotland's universities and colleges so that lecturers and staff will feel and share in the pride of being part of the great national success story. I refer members to my register of interests and I thank my comrade Katie Clark for securing this important debate today. As a former rep for the university and colleges union, the UCU, I know all too well the struggles that staff in higher education are facing. For years, those workers have been undervalued as both the UK and Scottish Governments have allowed low pay, casualisation and poor working conditions to become rife across the sector. I stand with those workers as they take industrial action and join them in their calls for a real pay rise after years of below inflation wages, for an end to precarious contracts that lead to poor working conditions and dangerously high workloads, and pensions that allow them to have dignity in retirement, not pensions that have been cut to the bone. As I have already mentioned, prior to election, I was a UCU rep. A particular issue that members face then and now is the increasing casualisation of work in higher education. I would like to share some testimony from a UCU member at the University of Dundee, which highlights the human impact of casualisation, in their words. I have been teaching at universities in the UK for five years, teaching English and academic skills to students who want to come and study in the UK. In that time, I have been on more than 10 temporary contracts, all of them either part-time or fractional. Most of my students will pay more for their master's course than I will make in a year. It is just not possible to plan a life under those conditions. It is nearly impossible to get a mortgage because temporary contracts are seen as too risky by the bank. You cannot afford to pay for further training and qualifications because your pay is so low. Starting a family seems impossible when you do not know if you will have a contract this semester or if you might need to move to another city for work. When I got my first job at a university, I was excited because I thought I would made it. Now, I would not recommend the higher education sector to anyone who wants to start a family or build a stable life of any kind. I plan to retrain and leave the sector at the next opportunity. I know that I am not alone. The UCU member whose testimony I just shared is not alone. The issues that they face reflect the systemic challenges facing university staff. As we have already heard today at the University of Dundee, senior management are pushing through pension cuts without meaningful negotiations with the affected workers or their trade union representatives in Unite, in Unison and in UCU. The Scottish Government has refused to engage, despite often emphasising the importance of fair work. The First Minister, the education ministers and even their officials all failed to meet with a delegation of workers and their Unite representatives in Parliament just two weeks ago. I can only respectfully suggest that such an invitation has never made its way to me. I have met the unions from Dundee. I have met folk from Dundee on the ground. I have spoken with them, so I am sorry to say that that is news to me. If that delegation wants to write to me, I will be happy to consider meeting with them. I thank the minister for his intervention and for his commitment to meeting with the workers. I will pass that on. The invitation was extended to every single MSP in Parliament and I raised it at FMQs. I even said at the time and place. I can only apologise if the minister was not paying attention that day. Where is the fairness and low pay in casualised contracts and pension cuts that university staff in Dundee and across Scotland now face? How can it be right that universities that receive so much public funding are able to defy the Scottish Government's fair work principles without being held to account? The growing marketisation of higher education has seen universities prioritise profit over people. We have to think bolder and transform our education system in the way we transformed public health with the creation of the NHS. That means aspiring for a national education service universally available, from cradle to grave, providing well-paid, secure and unionised jobs for its staff, and making lifelong learning a reality for all. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I refer members to my register of interests. I also thank Katie Clark for bringing this important question back before Parliament, because once again we are debating higher education at the very point when our trade unions are on the brink of industrial action. Once again, we are debating it as we witness a fierce political attack on the democratic freedoms of workers and their organisations. Make no mistake, this is an attack so extreme that simply witnessing it is not enough. This is no time for neutrality. This is a time to step up, actively defend those workers, those trade unions and those fundamental human rights and freedoms. Neither can we be neutral on the fate of our universities. Just last week, I visited the new advanced research centre at the University of Glasgow. I listened to university teachers who told me about the rise in precarious employment. I listened to students who told me about the difference that access to higher education was making to their lives, but how hard their struggle was. While new capital investment in our university buildings is important, we also need equally bold new human investment in our university staff and students. It reminds me that, as we contemplate the aftermath of this afternoon's budget and as this SNP Green Government contemplates yet more cuts to college and university funding, we should never forget that there are those who will use financial cuts not as a side effect but as an intended consequence to limit the choice open to working-class students. I rise to point out to Richard Leonard and the chamber that the Chancellor's announcements today mean that, from next year, this Scottish Government will have £1.5 billion more to spend on education and in other public services. As they always say about budgets, the devil will be in the detail and we shall see over the next few days what that really means on the ground. I will take an intervention. Michael Marra. I appreciate the member given way. The OBR in the accompanying notes for a budget today reflects the fact that household income in the UK is expected to fall by 7% this year and 7% next year. Is that not the situation that workers and universities face as a result of the economic policies of the UK Government? I agree with Michael Marra entirely. It is also the challenge that faces students from working-class backgrounds who are much less likely to get the opportunity. Let me turn in the time that I have left to look at the UCU's demands, which, in my view, are very modest. All they are looking for is a meaningful pay rise and action to address pay inequality, an agreed framework to eliminate precarious employment practices and to tackle dangerously high workloads, and an entirely affordable reversal of the 35% cut to university workers' pensions, a reinstatement of the university's pension scheme and a recognition that those are deferred earnings. To the outstanding leaders of the UCU, Joe Grady and Mary Sr, and to other higher education trade unions in dispute, we say that you and your members have got our 100% support. To the Scottish Government we say, of course we understand the importance of the autonomous status of our universities, of course we do, but they are not private businesses. They are public institutions, subject to public legislation, influence and regulation, and they are funded with public money. I ask the Minister for Higher and Further Education what it is going to take, when it is going to act and finally, let me say this, in our democracy, trade unions are a line of defence for working people, but I hope that the day will come soon when they will not just be a line of defence, they will be an alternative line of advance, a vehicle through which people can participate in the running of our universities, our colleges, on all our public services and, yes, in the running of our industries as well, so that the people who know what works, those who create the wealth, including the wealth of knowledge in our education system, are no longer all the time defending, but have their status transformed. That would herald a new era, a new era of mutual aid and mutual respect, a new era of social and economic responsibility, and a new era of progress for working people in this country. Thank you very much, Mr Leonard. I now invite the minister to respond to the debate for around seven minutes. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Can I begin by thanking Katie Clark for bringing forward the motion that we debate today? These are important issues, and it is entirely appropriate that we debate them in this Parliament. At the outset of my remarks, I do want to place on record my thanks to those who work in our universities, be they our lecturers staff, be they the support staff who work in our institutions, they keep our campuses running smoothly, they make sure that our students are supported and get the education that they require. I recognise that context, Presiding Officer. The last few years have not been easy for many sectors and for the university sector as well in working through the Covid-19 pandemic. It is all credit to those who have worked in the sector to have sustained it and, I have to say, to sustain it in continuing to be the envy of the world. I was surprised to hear Stephen Kerr saying that it should be the envy of the world. He should know that we have world-class outstanding excellence in our universities. I am sure that it was an inadvertent suggestion, otherwise, by Mr Kerr saying that it should be the envy of the world. It is the envy of the world. In respect of where the workforce relations are right now, my clear view is that workers in our universities should continue to be supported. That is of vital importance. We need to rely on them to help our institutions to continue to rebuild and bounce back from the post-Brexit, post-Covid economy, to help us to enable us to move towards net zero to respond to the imperatives of upskilling and reskilling and to continue to deliver world-class teaching, research and knowledge exchange. Of course, of course. Stephen Kerr. I am grateful to the minister for giving way. How on earth are they going to do that when this Scottish Government, this SNP Scottish Government, is cutting public funding to universities and to colleges? Take Glasgow Kelvin College. Here is what the principal says, Derek Smeal, that when he looks at the financial prospectus that the SNP is proposing, the impact looks at this early stage to be likely to mean a reduction in my workforce of 25 per cent by year 5, which is 2027. That is what the SNP has got on offer to this sector. When he talks about bouncing back, how are they supposed to do that when you are not funding them properly? When he talks about that, what he fails to mention, and I think that it is important that we place this in its proper context, is that today, as things stand, the Scottish Government's budget now is worth £1.7 billion less than when it was published in December 2021. The framework that we have laid out through the spending review is predicated on what we expect to be available to spend through the public purse. As a consequence of decisions taken by Mr Kerr's party in the Government, that is the reality of what we have to deal with and we will seek to rise to the occasion and do what we can to continue to support the sector, both universities and colleges, right now in a herd Katie Clark. We are seeing it very positively that we invest £1 billion—£1.1 billion—to be precise, Presiding Officer, in our investor sector. That is a substantial investment. We will continue to invest in the sector, of course, I will give way. I thank the minister for giving way. I think that we all have sympathy, certainly, about the current financial situation. I have addressed some of that in my speech, because the minister has to recognise that the amount of money that the Scottish Government has provided for Scottish students has not increased for 13 years. Is that not part of the root cause of the issue in terms of why we are talking about terms and conditions for Scottish workers in universities? What we have seen this year is that there has been an uplift in the teaching grant to universities being delivered through decisions taken by the Scottish funding council. We continue to invest and we will continue to invest in the substantial package of student support that we have in place, which enables Scottish students to attend university without having to pay the excessive and exorbitant fees that other students in the rest of the UK have to pay. Let me return to the industrial dispute, because, after all that, is the primary focus of today's debate. Ms Clark, I am sorry if I am going to disappoint her, but I am going to be consistent with what I have said before. It is fundamentally the case that the Scottish Government is not a direct party to the negotiation process. We have not got the ability to intervene directly, to determine, to dictate and to participate in how those negotiations will be taken forward. I think that it is important—I will take a wee second. That has not been set out by any member thus far. Of course, there are some disputes that are local—the Dundee one, for example, and the issues at Glasgow. For lecturers, the framework for negotiations is not a Scottish-specific one, but a UK-wide one. That is the context and the reality that we are dealing with. We will seek to continue to influence matters, and we will seek to continue to engage, but it is against that reality, and I will give a wee in that. Katie Clark. Does the minister accept that the model in higher education in Scotland is, as I outlined, a sector of endemic low-pay, poor conditions, excessive executive remuneration, casualised contracts or marketisation? Does he accept that it is the Scottish Government's responsibility to ensure that the model is one that is acceptable to the people of Scotland? Will he look at how the Fair Work Convention and employment practices in this sector can be improved? Of course I accept the responsibility that we have to bring our influence to bear to improve in these matters. I recognise that there are issues right across the labour market incidentally, not just in this sector, but right across the labour market in terms of the way the labour market is structured. I remind Ms Clark that, fundamentally, much of those things come back to employment law and how the labour market is regulated more widely. That is not directly in our gift. However, let me come back to the industry. I think that I have given away a number of times now, Presiding Officer. The minister has taken a number of interventions. I think that it is only reasonable to listen to his responses and not provide a running commentary on them. I assure you that the running commentary was not set me off my stride, Presiding Officer, but I appreciate the sentiment. Let me come back to the process of negotiation. I accept that there is a role, and I am not trying to abdicate that responsibility. I have sought to engage at every turn with both the institutions through Universities Scotland and the unions representing the workforce to urge them to come together to negotiate and come to a settlement that is fair and supports the workforce. In that regard, Mr Day is quite correct in his estimation of our involvement. We are involved. We are seeking to bring our influence to bear. Since I became Minister of Responsibility for Higher Education, I have undertaken to discharge that responsibility on a regular basis, engaging with all parties. Just last week, I spoke with the UCU on 27 October, I spoke with Unite and Unison. This week, I have written to the University and College Employers Association, copied it to Universities Scotland, continuing to urge them to engage with one another to make sure that the matter can be resolved in a satisfactory fashion. Again, on the Dundee situation specifically, I have regularly engaged with both the unions and the management. If Ms Vialba wants to contact me about another chance to engage with the workforce representatives, I will be happy to do so. Let me conclude, Presiding Officer, as I think you would probably want me to do now. I take our responsibilities to all workers in Scotland seriously. That includes those who work in our academic institutions. We are serious about advancing a fair work agenda. We are serious about seeing the fair work framework put into place. Through the Scottish Funding Council, through our own efforts, we will strain every sinew, pull every lever in our hands to make sure that we can further that agenda. Fundamentally, that is a situation that requires further engagement and dialogue between management and the workforce to be successfully resolved. I can assure members that I will continue to play my part in engaging with both parties to try and bring this to a successful resolution. Thank you very much indeed Minister. That concludes the debate and I suspend this meeting of Parliament until 2.30 this afternoon.