Just for the information of others. Octavia ll 2.0 TDi Manual.

The operation of the clutch pedal has been getting closer and closer to the floor and was only finally clearing about 1 cm from the floor and, of course, biting at the same point making driving difficult. At first pumping the pedal made a small difference but even this had stopped being effective. I thought the problem was hydraulics but as the pedal was coming back up to a level below the line with the brake pedal I put my foot under it and pulled it fully up. This has completely cured the clutch problem and it now works perfectly biting about 6 cm from the floor. Seems the problem was simply a sticking clutch pedal. Has saved needless work as the slave cylinder was being diagnosed as the problem.

Surely the original fault which caused the problem is still there though?

By manually forcing the pedal up you have only temporarily fixed the problem which will likely return, probably when you are furthest away from home!