Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to ensure that employers support staff to work from home where possible during the covid-19 outbreak.

The Government’s safer working guidance is clear that in order to keep the virus under control, it is important that people work safely. In order to help contain the virus, everyone who can work effectively from home must do so. Where people cannot do so (for instance people who work in critical national infrastructure, construction, or manufacturing) they should continue to attend their workplace. This is essential to keeping the country operating and supporting vital sectors and employers. The full guidance is available on gov.uk.

In order to help employers support staff to work from home where possible, ACAS has produced comprehensive guidance on the key employment issues for when people are working at home during the pandemic. This covers practical issues such as pay and insurance, as well as offering training on managing people who work remotely – the link to the relevant section of the ACAS site can be found here https://www.acas.org.uk/working-from-home.

There is also a legal framework in place that grants all employees with 26 weeks’ continuous service with their employer the statutory Right to Request Flexible Working, where employees can request a change to their hours, working patterns or to work from home. There is supporting guidance currently available online which explains eligibility, as well as the process for both making and receiving requests to work flexibly on GOV.UK – this can be found here https://www.gov.uk/flexible-working.