Working From Home (Home-based Working Committee Report)

Lord Fink Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fink (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, on securing this debate and on her exemplary chairmanship of the committee. I also thank our excellent clerk and staff team who supported the members of the committee, on which I served, and those who gave evidence to the inquiry. It was a pleasure to be part of the committee and, above all, I learned a great deal from the witnesses who gave evidence to us. Those insights helped to produce what I believe is a balanced and thoughtful report, and I am thankful for the opportunity to discuss the issues more widely today. I refer to my registered interests and note that many of the companies in which I have an interest operate in a variety of styles, from fully office-based to hybrid and home working, so I have no real dog in this fight.

To avoid duplication and to save time, I will focus on just four issues. The first is information. I love getting proper stats for things, especially important areas of policy. I continues to amaze and shock me how much money we sometimes spend on areas where we just do not have the evidence to make the decisions that we make, and when the evidence could be available at relatively modest cost. I welcome the Government’s commitment to improving the evidence base. Can the Minister say in summing up, or in writing, how they intend to do so? Will they consider enhancing ONS surveys or sponsoring additional ones? If hybrid working is here to stay, surely we need 21st-century statistics to understand it. At present, our data tells us far too little about how people are working, how they are being managed and what impact this is having on productivity and opportunity, as the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, mentioned.

The second is lack of training. One of the strongest messages we heard during the inquiry was how many organisations moved to home and hybrid working at extraordinary speed during the pandemic. They did so out of necessity, as the noble Lord, Lord Monks, pointed out, and with impressive success given the scale of the challenge. But, understandably, few had the opportunity to retrain managers or redesign systems for supervising, developing and supporting staff working in different ways. In too many cases, more effort went into procuring video conference facilities than training staff, which was ironic. As a consequence, some of the difficulties that have since been attributed to home working may in fact reflect shortcomings in management practices rather than shortcomings in home working itself. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development told the committee that organisations investing in line management training reported much better productivity outcomes, while many business leaders emphasised the importance of effective mentoring and collaboration, particularly for younger workers.

Good management has always mattered, but it matters even more when teams are dispersed. I discovered this myself when in business. If we are serious about improving productivity and increasing labour market participation—for all the inclusivity reasons mentioned of trying to widen out the workforce as much as possible—for home working and hybrid systems to really work, investment in management capability should be seen not as a luxury, but an economic necessity. I therefore hope the Government will consider whether more can be done to encourage and support organisations in developing the skills to make hybrid working a real success. I am not calling for a large new spending programme; rather, I wonder whether existing schemes, such as Help to Grow: Management, could place greater emphasis on leading hybrid teams, looking at best practice that could be shared and bringing together business organisations to develop practical guidance. Such measures need not be expensive, but they could yield significant benefits for productivity, staff retention and economic growth. Will the Minister please consider this? It would take very little cost to do, just organisation.

Thirdly, I have observed that home working was popular with almost all staff, and even many people who worked hybrid wished to go fully remote, but this is an example of being careful what you wish for. Many businesspeople I know would say that any job that can be done totally remotely is more susceptible to being made redundant, either through outsourcing to a cheaper country or using AI. Expecting to be employed in an expensive part of Britian while working totally remotely is probably an unrealistic expectation for the long term.

Fourthly and finally, something that needs to be considered is the impact on young people. For school and university leavers looking for their first employment role, it is in many cases becoming much more difficult for them to integrate into a team where remote working is the norm in terms of training, team working and work ethic. Indeed, as another noble Lord pointed out, the fact that people are hiring fewer young employees as a response to them having to work unsupervised indicates that there is a problem here. Young people learn an amazing amount by mimicry—you have only to go skiing and watch a young ski class all waggling and following the instructor to see that. Without help, they cannot learn. Will the Minister provide reassurance that the Government will consider how to assist young people who are being disadvantaged by the reduction in office-based working?

Universal Credit

Lord Fink Excerpts

Thursday 16th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fink (Con)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, on securing this debate, which provides an opportunity to remind ourselves how universal credit can help its recipients. I echo some of the concerns that have been raised today.

I stress that universal credit has definitely created clear incentives to work by removing the poverty traps at all levels which in the past often made paid work uneconomic. Indeed, the existence of universal credit probably helped mitigate the unemployment rise in the wake of the last recession so that the numbers of unemployed were below all known forecasts. As others have remarked, we should remind ourselves of those years, and of what universal credit is here to replace. Before universal credit, we had a complex system that failed the very people who needed the support and opportunity the most—an incredibly complicated administrative system, which, as my noble friend Lord Farmer said, often trapped people in a cycle of vulnerability, dependency, immobility and poverty.

Since the introduction of universal credit, we have a system where work actually pays at all levels, whether part-time or full-time, compared with not working, and not just financially. I am a passionate believer in the pride and dignity that work provides, how it gives a sense of self-worth and a feeling of belonging, and how even an initially less well-paid job or a part-time job can lead to promotion or help enhance a CV, whereas a long period of unemployment blights it.

Despite hearing many examples today of individual cases where UC has caused real problems, overall since universal credit was brought in, more people are able to get work than under the previous benefit system. We know that universal credit claimants are four percentage points more likely to be in work within six months compared with people on the previous jobseeker’s allowance. Like my noble friend Lord Shinkwin, I stress that above all the system must be sustainable.

Figures show that the number of children living in workless households is at the lowest level since records began and unemployment is at the lowest level since 1975, as my noble friend Lady O’Cathain said. Furthermore, by the end of the rollout, it is estimated that universal credit will boost employment by 250,000. Behind all those statistics are hard-working people making this happen and universal credit supports them in that.

Like others, however, I wish to raise concerns with my noble friend the Minister. I acknowledge that while being paid monthly possibly helps the recipient to prepare for the monthly salary that is most common in work, and becoming more so—I see the logic of that—I am aware that people who receive universal credit are often out of work and have little or no savings to fall back on. Like many noble Lords, I would like my noble friend to explain how the Government currently mitigate the slightly longer time it takes for a claimant to receive universal credit, and whether there are any plans to improve the situation if we see more claimants experience real cash-flow problems. Furthermore, I understand that, at the time they apply, some claimants who find themselves entering universal credit will have existing rent arrears, debts and possibly payday loans. Does the Minister agree that we need to do more on personal financial education in the UK—at all levels, including schools? Are new universal credit claimants with pre-existing debts either referred to Citizens’ Advice automatically or given the information they need to get their debts down? Will they get assistance in accessing products that can help them to do this, such as IVAs or other programmes for managing debt?

While it is easy to categorise the unemployment level as a number, I try never to forget that behind every claimant count there is a human being wanting to work—to provide a better life for themselves and possibly their family. There is a human being feeling the frustration of not seeing job vacancies that fit their skills, financial needs or family commitments, and probably enduring endless interviews and the bureaucracy of repeated claims.

After years of tinkering with a failing system with so many layers and complexities, replacing it with universal credit provides the best chance to help that person back into the world of work. Therefore, despite the real issues raised—I hope the Minister can address some of them—I believe it provides the best chance of that person leading a self-fulfilled and purposeful life.