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Work and Families Bill

The amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, does exactly what it says on the tin. It enables the Secretary of State to review the impact on employees of the right to request flexible working applications, including the impact on those whose application is refused. The noble Baroness has highlighted the concerns of the Working Families group, which I am sympathetic to. I am greatly concerned about their fears, which the noble Baroness has already mentioned, that fathers are both less likely to request flexible working arrangements than mothers, and are more likely to have their requests rejected. While understanding the aims behind the amendment, however, we have been arguing throughout the whole of Committee about the need not to over-burden business with regulation as a result of promoting family-friendly issues, and to a degree the same must be true of government. It may be that an annual review would be too onerous, and that there are better measures the Government could use to consider this issue without recourse to primary legislation. For example, the current consultation on the regulations could include representations on this issue, and the Government could respond to them when they publish the consultation results. But I support the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, in her desire to evaluate the effectiveness of these measures on the whole work-life balance.