Working From Home (Home-based Working Committee Report)

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

That this House takes note of the Report from the Home-based Working Committee Is working from home working? (HL Paper 196, Session 2024-26).

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)]

My Lords, it is now 18 months since the Home-based Working Committee was established to conduct a special inquiry into the effects and future development of home-based working in the UK. At that time, barely a day went by when there was not a media story about working from home, so the time was very definitely right for the sort of evidence-based, in-depth inquiry that this House does so well. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins, whose idea it was to have this inquiry and who steered it through the Liaison Committee.

In November 2025 the committee published its report, titled Is Working from Home Working? The Government and the Office for National Statistics both responded in February 2026. It is a pleasure to be able to debate the report this evening and I am pleased to see so many of the committee members here. They were all very committed to the work we were doing and were challenging but constructive throughout the inquiry. Despite coming at the subject from a range of perspectives, we reached a consensus on the report.

I am grateful to the many people and organisations who gave evidence, both written and in person. I put on record my appreciation for the hard work and commitment of our specialist adviser, Dr Cevat Aksoy, and our committee staff Dom Walsh, Robert Wilson, Mark Gladwell and Lara Orija.

It is evident that there has been a rapid growth in remote and hybrid working since 2020. It was of course driven initially by the pandemic, but it now represents a significant change in the way that work is done by many in the UK. Since that time, the UK workforce appears to have settled into what has been described as a new normal, where a large minority work from home at least some of the time. At the time our report was published, ONS data suggested that 13% of working adults in Great Britain worked from home all the time and a further 26% worked from home some of the time. We also found that the UK has one of the highest rates of home-based working globally. As our report makes clear, these major changes in working practices represent both opportunities and risks for the workforce, for employers and for wider society.

The committee found that government policy and data collection regarding remote and hybrid working sit across multiple departments and agencies. The committee recommended that the Government should allocate ministerial responsibility for the co-ordination across departments of data on the prevalence and impacts of remote and hybrid working.

The committee also noted that there are significant limitations with the data collected by the ONS on remote and hybrid working, so we recommend that the ONS should start regularly collecting and publishing additional data on variable levels of hybrid working. For example, when it says that someone is working from home, that could mean one day a month or four days a week. Its data does not split that up.

The Government indicated that they would consider routes to improving evidence sharing and data collection. The Department for Business and Trade specifically says that it will engage across government to shape flexible working policy and evaluate its impact. The ONS said in a separate response to our report that it was engaging with the department, but that any extension to the data collected would require sponsorship from a government department. So the first of what I suspect will be many questions to the Minister tonight is: can the Government confirm that they will support the ONS to gather data on these variable levels of hybrid working? What steps have the Government taken to capture detailed data on how different groups experience home-based working?

The committee found that home-based working has mixed effects on individuals’ physical and mental health and well-being. There was an overall perception that the impact of home-based working is positive, but that is derived mostly from self-reported evidence. There is no doubt that people with disabilities and carers may have an improved experience of work or may be able to work where otherwise they could not. However, others may be disadvantaged: in particular young people who miss an interpersonal connection, or people with unsuitable home working environments. The Government have acknowledged this evidence gap and highlighted plans for a vanguard taskforce and workplace health intelligence unit, to be established as part of their Keep Britain Working programme. These initiatives will examine how flexible work arrangements can support individuals with long-term health conditions to stay in work. Can the Minister give us a timeline for the establishment of that unit?

The committee welcomed findings that the flexibility of home-based working can benefit individuals with disabilities and with parental and caring responsibilities. The Access to Work scheme provides important support to enable people with disabilities to work, including working from home, yet the committee heard that the scheme was facing administrative and financial difficulties. The Government have stated that a consultation to inform the future direction of Access to Work has concluded and plans will be set out in due course, so I wonder whether the Minister is able to update the House on that this evening. Can she also confirm that remote and hybrid working arrangements will continue to form part of any new scheme?

The committee also heard that groups of people can face challenges in accessing and benefiting from remote and hybrid working, and recommended that the Government promote equitable access through awareness campaigns targeted at employers that focus on specific sectors, regions and demographics where prevalence is lower than it could be. The Government have said they will consider how to target communications on flexible working towards worker groups and businesses that are less likely to work flexibly now.

I ought to note at this point that the term “flexible working” can and often does include hybrid and remote working, but it also encompasses a whole range of other practices. That is an important distinction when we think about the question of equity across the workforce for those whose jobs are simply not able to be done from home, so we welcome the inclusion of flexible working opportunities as a sub-criterion in the Government’s Social Value Model procurement tool.

I turn to productivity. The committee was surprised by a lack of data on the impact of remote and hybrid working on productivity. Evidence on personal productivity was self-reported. Many workers tend towards the view that they are more productive at home—that is hardly surprising given the reduction in commuting time and the potential autonomy to manage their own time effectively. Employer views were much more mixed. Around one-third thought their workers were less productive at home, around one-third thought they were more productive, and around one-third thought it did not make much difference—make of that what you will. However, all employers focused instead on intangible but important issues such as collaboration, creativity and workplace culture. Pretty much all of them reported improved recruitment and retention. In its response, the ONS described plans to develop a linked employer-employee data infrastructure, which would include productivity measures. The ONS aims to publish a technical note and a set of exploratory statistics in the second half of this year.

Overall, we concluded that by retaining the flexibility of remote work and the collaborative benefits of in-person work, the hybrid model has the potential to be the best of both worlds, but only if it is co-ordinated and well managed. We heard that there is little value in employers establishing a hybrid working mandate unless they take steps to ensure that collaboration actually happens. We heard lots of stories of people commuting into the office only to spend the whole day on Zoom calls. Employers need to work harder to make sure that teams are attending the office on the same day and that collaboration is enabled.

It was made very clear to us that strong management skills can alleviate the potential downsides of home-based working. Several witnesses, including from professional associations, told the committee that many managers need much more training in how to facilitate effective remote and hybrid working. The committee recommended that the Government publish guidance on managing employees in these circumstances and incentivise investment in management training, such as by reconsidering the proposed cuts to level 7 apprenticeships. In response, the Government suggested that existing support for management training is sufficient. Perhaps I could gently urge the Minister to have a look at our evidence again, because it strongly suggests otherwise.

Employers that the committee spoke to generally agreed that the Government should avoid further regulatory and legislative intervention regarding remote and hybrid working. This was particularly the case with the so-called right to switch off, where there was a widespread sense that a code of conduct is preferable to legislation. Several witnesses suggested that the Government should reconvene the Flexible Working Taskforce, and the committee asked the Government to explain why it had been disbanded. In response, the Government said that they have launched a consultation on flexible working. As part of the plan to make work pay, the Government will look to establish a more structured and official-led stakeholder group. Can the Minister update the House tonight on what progress has been made in setting up this stakeholder group? The make work pay consultation on improving access to flexible working closed in April. Can the Minister provide an update on the initial findings?

We heard that employees tend to be more supportive of home working than employers. There is a preference gap of about one day: most employees would rather be in the office two days and at home three days, while employers prefer it the other way. This emphasises the importance of ongoing dialogue between employers and employees. We spent quite a lot of time discussing the industrial relations aspects of this.

We also spent a lot of time discussing employers’ back-to-office mandates. The evidence we took suggests that, while these were becoming more common, they quite often codified hybrid work rather than mandating full-time office attendance. The Employment Rights Act allows employers to reject a flexible working request if it is deemed reasonable. However, there is a lack of clarity over the definition of “reasonable”—clearly, what is reasonable to an employer is unlikely to be reasonable to an employee. The committee recommended that the Government consider the risk of litigation and its impact on the tribunal system, which is already struggling, if there is no more clarity on the definition of reasonable. I wonder why the Government consider that the tribunal data from the current system preceding the new reasonable test means that the new test will not significantly increase the tribunal system’s workload.

The committee found that remote and hybrid working have the potential to support wider government priorities relating to increasing employment levels, especially for people with disabilities and those with caring responsibilities. The committee recommended that the Government explain whether home-based working will form part of the thinking behind Get Britain Working and the connect to work programme.

The committee recommended that the Government conduct further research into understanding the wider consequences of changing work patterns. This would encompass regional differences, urban-rural policy, transport, and the retail and hospitality sectors. The committee spent some time looking at these, but we were bedevilled by the same lack of data in this area as in a number of others. It is true to say that the broader the scope of the area you are looking at, the harder it is to nail down whether working from home was causing the issue or whether it was other changes in the economy —or, in the case of the retail sector, things such as energy prices and employment costs. It is quite difficult to tease that out.

The committee found that digital technologies are critical to facilitating access to remote and hybrid working. We recommended that the Government increase long-term investment in digital infrastructure, such as by committing to further funding of Project Gigabit. The Government should support the development of digital skills. We were all surprised to hear how many younger people, while clearly having certain digital skills, do not have the right skills to bring into the workplace, even digitally. That came as a surprise to all of us. In response, the Government said that the proposed statement of strategic priorities has established that business connectivity should be treated as a priority by Ofcom. That is not the same as household connectivity, so perhaps the Minister could clarify that. The Government also noted that digital access and the development of digital skills are being supported by the digital inclusion plan.

The committee found that future developments in remote and hybrid working are difficult to predict. Some sectors may see remote jobs supplanted by AI, while others may find that automation increasingly allows work to be completed at home. The committee has recommended that the Government set out their approach to how AI will relate to remote and hybrid working.

The committee concluded that the long-term social and economic effects of remote and hybrid working are still unclear. There are risks in the long term for collaboration, productivity and skills development. The committee recommended that further research be conducted on the long-term effects of home-based working and that the Government should provide funding for academics to complete this work, facilitating access to longitudinal data.

Our report shed light on the opportunities and challenges that remote and hybrid working pose to individuals, employers and society. However, gaps in the available data remain. We still do not have a full understanding of how different groups experience home-based working and what the long-term impact of the growth of this will be. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for engaging so comprehensively with the committee’s report and for some useful updates, and I am sure the committee would join me in that.

We have had an excellent debate, and not just because noble Lords all said nice things about me —although I am not complaining about that. Every contribution has been thoughtful and insightful and has added something to the work of the committee, which, as I think noble Lords can all see, worked very hard over a long period of time to produce this.

The noble Lord, Lord Monks, started by reminding us of the pandemic and the incredible pivot that the workforce in this country made—indeed, it happened in this House. It is worth reflecting that that was only six years ago. In the sweep of history and the way that labour markets change, that is a very short spell of time.

What we were trying to do in this report was, in a way, to provide a comprehensive snapshot—but it is an entire album, is it not?—of where we are now. We think it will be useful to policymakers now and, on the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, in looking not just backwards but forwards. To make a cliché, you cannot look forward unless you know where you have come from, and I think we have done a good job in saying that. I thank everyone who has taken part and I commend the report to the House.

Motion agreed.