Contribution
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their participation and support and my noble friend Lord Ashcombe in particular for his comments, which demonstrated very practically the benefits of flexible working to businesses and in running teams effectively. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Fox.
Just to emphasise further the potential benefits of flexible working for businesses and in terms of getting people re-engaged in the workplace, research conducted by the Behavioural Insights Team has shown that offering flexible working can attract up to 30% more applicants to job vacancies, and work by the ONS revealed that older workers working flexibly would be more likely to plan to retire later. Those are just two further specific examples.
I will speak just briefly to the other amendment in this group. I heard how well put the noble Baroness’s argument on behalf of her noble friend was, but I also hear the nervousness around increasing the number of issues that go to employment tribunals and then, across this Bill, the burden that will be placed on tribunals and the delays for both employers and employees caught in that system. The Minister said that perhaps it had, in recent years, been underinvested in, and that that was something the Government would seek to address. I would therefore be interested to know from Minister whether that is something that the Government will seek to address, whether he can say what additional investment will go into the employment tribunal system to prepare for the Bill and whether he will also commit to that investment going in ahead of the commencement of the Bill, so that we have the system in place to deal with some of the changes that we have heard about. He may wish to return to that point at a later point in the debate—he is not leaping to his feet right now.
I acknowledge that, although my amendment would change the legislative framework for flexible working, it is really about changing the culture to one where you can have the conversations as early and openly as possible. However, in how we have approached flexible working in legislation, we have underpinned those changes with legislative rights, so that people have rights to come back to.
I was slightly confused by the noble Lord’s response to my amendment. He said that, in practice, it is what happens anyway, but it would not be appropriate to underpin it with legislation. I was not totally clear why not, when we underpin the rest of the system of the right to request flexible working with legislation. He also said that if someone had their job offer withdrawn because they had made a request for flexible working, that would be covered by existing discrimination legislation. I do not believe that would be the case. It would be the case if their job offer had been withdrawn because they had a protected characteristic.
Actually, I think that one of the important things about the shift in flexible working that we have seen in recent years, and the 2014 move to extend that right to request to everyone, not just mums, dads or carers, is the changing of the culture around what flexible working means. It is really important for those people with caring responsibilities and other responsibilities in their lives, but it is really important for a whole host of other reasons, and we cannot second-guess people’s individual circumstances when they request flexible working. If someone has been made a job offer and they request flexible working, I do not think that current legislation will protect them if that job offer is withdrawn on that basis.