Working From Home (Home-based Working Committee Report)

Baroness Manzoor Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Manzoor (Con)]

My Lords, I too pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, for her excellent chairing of the committee. Bringing together members with different experiences and perspectives is no small task, yet she guided our deliberations with patience, skill and good humour throughout. I also thank our clerk, Dom Walsh, for his team, whose professionalism enabled us to navigate a substantial body of evidence and research, and those who gave evidence.

Having served on the committee, I can say that one conclusion stands out. The debate about working from home is too often presented as a binary choice: success or failure, productivity or inefficiency, office or home. The evidence that we received pointed to a more nuanced reality: the central issue is not where people work but how work is organised, managed and supported. Remote and hybrid working are no longer temporary responses to an emergency, such as the Covid-19 pandemic; they are now established features of the labour market. The challenge is therefore not whether hybrid working should continue but how it can operate effectively for employees, employers and the wider economy.

One aspect of the evidence that particularly struck me was the unequal distribution of opportunity. The benefits of hybrid working are most available to professional and highly skilled workers, particularly in larger cities such as London. By contrast, many people employed in healthcare, manufacturing, retail and hospitality have little access to such flexibility. We should therefore be cautious about assuming that the experiences of office-based workers reflect those of the wider workforce. Much of the evidence available came from employees rather than large employers. Employees frequently reported positive outcomes, including improved work/life balance, reduced commuting, greater autonomy and enhanced well-being. These benefits were especially cited as important for disabled people, carers and parents, many of whom found that flexible working enabled them to remain economically active.

However, the evidence also highlighted genuine concerns: social isolation, weaker workplace relationships and blurred boundaries between professional and personal life. Questions were also raised about career progression and mentoring opportunities, particularly for younger workers, who benefit from direct interaction with colleagues and managers. Microsoft reported that extensive remote working may weaken collaboration and knowledge- sharing networks.

For me, perhaps the most contested issue is productivity. Yet one of the committee’s strongest conclusions was that there is no convincing evidence that working from home either universally increases or decreases productivity. Overall, the evidence suggested that productivity depends less on location than on leadership, communication, organisational culture and effective management, as so ably highlighted by my noble friend Lady Bottomley.

However, several important questions remain unanswered. We found limited evidence on the impact of home working on consumer service outcomes, regional inequalities and equality and inclusion, and on whether remote working may conceal issues such as domestic abuse or increased caring burdens on women. As we have heard, there are also wider implications for cities, towns, transport systems and hospitality businesses. These gaps demonstrate the need for further research and better data, as articulated by the noble Baroness, Lady Freeman, and others. Can the Minister therefore say what plans the Government have to address these evidence gaps and improve data collection even further?

My conclusion is straightforward: hybrid working in some form is here to stay, but its success is not inevitable. Employers should retain the flexibility to determine arrangements that suit their organisations and workforce, rather than operate under a rigid mandate set out by any Government. Government should support this transition through investment in digital infrastructure, better data collection and the sharing of best practice. Can the Minister say when the Government plan to improve full access to internet connectivity, as well as to digital skills and digital infrastructure, particularly in rural and deprived areas? Indeed, in the area where I live, there is hardly any connectivity.

To conclude, further debate should focus not on where people work but on how we create productive, inclusive and sustainable workplaces, particularly as AI becomes more widespread. Therefore, can the Minister say what action the Government are taking to ensure that flexible and hybrid working do not further entrench inequalities in the workplace?