UK’s biggest recruiters warn ministers not to hire agency staff to replace strikers

A woman reads a note about the travel disruption outside Earlsfield railway station on the third day of the biggest national rail strike. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Britain’s biggest recruitment and staffing companies have written to the government to protest against plans to replace striking workers with agency staff, warning that this would further inflame strikes.

In a letter to Kwasi Kwarteng, the bosses of 13 companies including Hays, Adecco, Randstad and Manpower called on the business secretary to reconsider plans to repeal a decades-long ban on using agency workers to cover for picketing staff.