Let us be clear—as Monica Lennon actually has been, and I welcome that—about what Labour means by “intervention”. It means shaking the magic money tree and giving colleges whatever moneys they need to satisfy the demands of the lecturers in this dispute, with no financial detriment to any other part of education delivery.

A pay rise is not even the totality of what is being sought in the dispute and the negotiations. It is not just about committing to a pay uplift for 2025-26 at a stage when the budget that will be available to the Scottish Government—and the colleges—is a complete unknown. It is also about colleges committing to an open-ended, no compulsory redundancies approach and returning all pay that was lost via striking during the present dispute. The price tag for delivering all that would be extremely significant.

The question for Labour is this: when it calls for intervention to settle the dispute, is it expecting all those demands to be met? If so, where would it have us find those sums?