Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Bill

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a particular pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond. Once again, I am impressed by his ability to translate his lived experience into persuasive rhetoric in your Lordships’ House. It is a distinct privilege that we regularly have the opportunity to hear from him on areas in which, sad to say, there are fewer people than there ought to be in your Lordships’ House who can speak with that lived experience.

It is also a particular pleasure to speak in support of this Bill, and I commend and congratulate my noble friend Lady Taylor on proposing it and introducing it with her characteristically informed and persuasive eloquence. While I am at it, we should recognise her Bolton colleague, my honourable friend Yasmin Qureshi, for her hard work proposing and sponsoring the Bill through the other place. From my reading of the debate at the various stages of the Bill in the other place, she was 100% persuasive. The Bill attracted support from all parts of that House and has been delivered to us in good condition.

As others have said, and as was said repeatedly in the Bill’s various stages in the other place, the Bill is not an attempt to change workplace culture but to give legislative force to changes that have occurred organically. In 2016, less than 10% of jobs were considered flexible. Since then, we have seen a 566% increase, with 58% of UK businesses now offering flexible working in some form. The Bill embeds this cultural shift into law. As we await the long-promised but yet to be seen government employment legislation in Bill form, perhaps we should thank Labour Bolton for giving us this opportunity to modernise at least this part of the labour law in the meantime.

Clause 1 is extremely welcome. It transfers greater agency to the employee and ensures that flexible working is seen as a right, rather than a favour that can be airily granted or refused at the whim of the employer. Despite the efforts of some to caricature flexible working as a charter for middle-class idleness, with stories of senior managers working from their Pelotons, it is something which is most important for those who are seeking to balance employment with very real challenges and responsibilities in their personal lives. It is particularly important for those who are neurodivergent, for those who have responsibilities as carers or as parents of young children and, as we have heard, for those who are disabled.

Before plunging into an analysis of any piece of legislation, I believe it is worth asking the most fundamental questions: is it necessary, does it engage a real as opposed to an imagined problem, and will its provisions do so effectively? I believe the answer to all three is yes. As your Lordships’ House will know, since 2014, all employees have had the legal right to request flexible working, but only 30% of those requests were accepted in the last year for which figures are available, while flexitime was still unavailable for almost 60% of UK employees. Given the need to tempt those who have opted in significant numbers for early retirement back into the workforce, embedding the right to flexible working will be critical.

In thinking about where the inequities in the current system lie, as well as strengthening the right to request flexible working for parents, carers and those suffering with a disability, there is also a need to address the problem of low pay. In the 2023 Flex for Life report, the researchers outline the current state of flexible working in Scotland. They found that while 51% of Scottish workers who earn less than £20,000 work flexibly, that figure is 80% for those who earn more than £50,000. One can adduce apparently obvious reasons for this—that lower-paid workers are more likely to work in sectors where flexibility is more difficult, such as hospitality and manufacturing—but the research shows this imbalance to be more deeply entrenched. This disparity is, in fact, true across all sectors. To quote the report directly:

“Frontline or not, the higher earners always have significantly more flexibility than lower earners”.


That is something we should think about in further debates on this subject and as we monitor the effect of this Bill once it receives Royal Assent, which I am sure it will.

I shall be supporting the Bill as it progresses through your Lordships’ House. It recognises and gives legislative shape to a cultural shift that has taken place over the last few years, and it seeks to empower employees and give them greater agency. For these creditable and credible reasons, I look forward to it reaching the statute book.