John Stuart Agnew (EFD), blue-card answer. – Well I do not agree with that, Mr Tarabella. It is as simple as that. Companies are there to make money and to give a dividend to their shareholders. They need good staff to do it, and if a female is going to deliver the goods, they will hire a female.

I just want to tell you about my own circumstances. I run a small to medium-sized enterprise that turns over about GBP 1 million a year. When I was elected here, my wife took on a much more significant role in my business, and she is now in charge of all the hiring of employees. We employee nine in the business and only one of them is a woman. Now, that is not my decision: my wife does the hiring and firing. But she feels that, generally, men will do these dirty jobs better than women, and that is my wife’s decision.

(The speaker agreed to take a blue-card question under Rule 149(8))