Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Bill

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Friday 28th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

I am pleased to be able to speak on this important Bill, and my congratulations and appreciation go to the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) for bringing it to the House. I am also delighted to see my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) on the Front Bench where he properly belongs. He will be able to see the Bill through the House and to honour our manifesto commitment, which said that we wanted to make flexible working the default option for employment. I am very much in support of that principle for the reasons that have been so well set out by colleagues across the House. My thoughts are with those who have caring responsibilities who need the additional flexibility that the Bill will bring them in order to stay in the workforce and continue to contribute to our economy, but also to put their families first, as we all do. I refer in particular to those with disabled members of their family, children at home and older people.

The Bill will also be helpful to those who have other responsibilities or interests that they want to discharge alongside their employment. One of the great needs of our society at the moment is for people to contribute in their communities at home, as so many would like to do and, indeed, as so many were able to do—if in a slightly strange way—during the pandemic when they stepped up to play a role in their neighbourhoods. For all the intense stresses and distresses of that era we did see something of the society that we would like to have in future where people are living and working closer to home, playing an active role in their community and being good neighbours to each other.

The new economy that is emerging is one in which we care less about balancing work and life as if those two things have completely different spheres and operate in different universes from one in which work and life are more blurred, where we could have a more local, more sustainable life in which our economic and our community activities are interlaced, which is a very good thing. I revere my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), the former Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, but I do not share his fetish for office working at all costs. There is a great role for working from home, and it is really about negotiation between employers and employees about how to get that balance right.

The only aspect of the Bill that concerns me slightly—and I shall be interested to hear the Minister’s view on why we are supporting it—is the withdrawal of the obligation on the employee to explain to the employer what the effect of flexible working would be for the company. I wonder about that, because a successful employer-employee relationship is one of common interest. I think it appropriate to ask an employee who is seeking a homeworking or flexible-working arrangement what effect that might have on the company or other organisation and on that person’s colleagues, and I think that that was a good principle. I support the Bill and I recognise that it might be appropriate to withdraw that obligation, but I think—and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Daly) made this point very well—that we need to consider what burdens we impose on businesses when we extend workers’ rights, and should always seek not to create an adversarial relationship between employers and employees, who ultimately share common interests.

That aside, I am happy to support the Bill, and look forward to hearing from the Minister later.