Working From Home (Home-based Working Committee Report)

Baroness Featherstone Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Featherstone (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank our excellent chair and fellow committee members for what I found to be quite a fascinating inquiry.

The extraordinary circumstances of the pandemic transformed home-based working from a relatively niche practice into a normal part of working life for millions of people. The question for our committee and the apt title for our report is: is it working? The answer is that it can work very well, but only if we pay attention to how it is managed and to who benefits from it.

One of the strongest messages I took from the evidence was that home-based working has the potential to widen opportunity. As has been said, we heard compelling evidence about the benefits for disabled people, carers and others whose participation in the labour market may previously have been limited by rigid working patterns. That was an important finding. At a time when policymakers are rightly concerned about economic inactivity and labour shortages, greater flexibility can help people remain in or return to work, and it can open doors that might otherwise remain closed.

It can also help to democratise opportunity geographically. Talent is spread across the country far more evenly than jobs have traditionally been. If used well, home-based working can allow people to access opportunities without having to move to where those opportunities are concentrated. That has the potential to benefit individuals, families and communities well beyond our major employment centres.

Having spent much of my political life concerned with equality, I have learned that the biggest barriers are often the ones nobody intended to create. That is why I found myself asking a different question throughout the inquiry, a bit like the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox. If some groups make greater use of home-based working than others, what happens to their careers over time? If women continue to carry a greater share of caring responsibilities, and therefore make greater use of flexible working arrangements, are they promoted at the same rate as those who spend more time at the workplace? Are they likely to move into leadership positions? Are they seen in the same way as men by senior managers? We do not actually know.

What surprised me about the whole inquiry was how little we actually know. Again and again during the inquiry, we came up against the same problem: a lack of robust evidence. We heard strong opinions, anecdotes and assumptions. What we do not yet have, as many have said, is enough high-quality data to understand the long-term effects of home-based working on career progression, pay and opportunity.

That matters, as others have said, because careers are not built solely through formal appraisal systems; they are built through relationships, sponsorship and informal advocacy. They are built through being known, being trusted and being remembered when opportunities arise. Many of us will recognise that some of the most important conversations in our careers happened before meetings began, after they ended, in the pub or simply because we happened to be in the room. If visibility becomes opportunity, and opportunity becomes promotion, we need to understand who benefits and who may be left behind. A policy can appear entirely fair on paper and yet produce unequal outcomes in practice.

The report highlights another crucial issue: management. Successful home-based working requires much more than laptops and video calls. It requires managers who focus on outcomes rather than attendance; who set clear expectations; who stay connected with their teams; and who build trust through regular communication, support and accountability. It also requires employers to invest in the management programmes and skills needed to lead effectively in a more flexible working environment. Many witnesses seemed to say it was more ad hoc than actual practice. Good management can make flexible working a success, but poor management will undermine it.

For me, one of the most important conclusions of this inquiry is that the debate should no longer be framed as a choice between home and office because the world has moved on now. The real challenge is to ensure that flexibility expands opportunity rather than narrows it; that it supports participation without creating new barriers to progression; and that it works not just for those fortunate enough to have access to it, but as fairly as possible across our workforce.

Home-based working is going to remain a permanent feature of modern working life for the time being. Our task now is to ensure that it delivers not just flexibility and productivity, but fairness and opportunity too.