Passengers are facing more travel carnage this morning as workers cripple the rail network with the largest industrial action in a decade.

       The network across the UK is due to be brought to a standstill for the second time in a week as staff from the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) walk out in the second of three days of strikes.

       Ahead of the strikes, officials were drawing up legislation that will repeal legal restrictions banning bosses from using agency staff to cover for striking workers.

       A spokesman at the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said it would “minimise the negative and unfair impact of strikes”, adding: “Strikes in public services such as education can often mean parents have to stay at home with their children rather than go to work, or rail sector strikes stopping commuters getting to work or to other businesses.”

       Follow the latest updates below.

       A teachers' strike would be "unforgivable" in the wake of Covid, the Education Secretary has said, as officials draw up plans for an army of supply teachers to keep schools open, Camilla Turner, Hayley Dixon and Ben Riley-Smith write.

       Nadhim Zahawi said young people had already suffered "more disruption than any generation that’s gone before them" after the UK’s largest teaching union threatened to ballot for a strike.

       On Thursday, the Government will reveal plans to change the law to allow businesses to use skilled agency workers to cover striking staff to minimise disruption.

       Read the full story here

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