Work and Families Bill

Although the Government do not support the amendment, I hope I can reassure the noble Baroness that we are indeed committed to the kind of review that she wishes to see. There is no question that it is important to monitor and evaluate the impact of legislation to ensure it is achieving its purpose. We have put a comprehensive monitoring strategy in place. To serve as a baseline before the law came into force, we carried out two work-life balance surveys, one on employees and one on employers. These addressed actual working practices, as well as attitudes towards work-life balance and the new flexible working law. After the introduction of the law, we commissioned two stand-alone surveys to evaluate awareness and uptake of flexible working, and we have just started fieldwork on Work-Life Balance 3, which will look at the impact of the flexible working law. The intention is that we will bring together all the evidence in the summer, and we will be publishing a compendium on flexible working. It will provide an analysis of the evidence of the impact of the law on both employees and employers, and will draw upon the evidence produced not only by the Department for Trade and Industry, but also from all our stakeholders. I hope that work will inform further debate. The noble Baroness had some interesting comments to make about the current law as it relates to flexible working and recourse both to employment tribunals and to complaints under the Sex Discrimination Act. The evidence we have so far is that the law is working well. My understanding is that the overwhelming majority of requests, nearly 90 per cent, are agreed; indeed, that almost a quarter of parents with children under six have asked to work flexibly. About 605 cases have so far been referred to tribunals: 64 have been heard, of which 20 have been successful and 44 unsuccessful; 232 were settled by ACAS before tribunal; 185 were withdrawn or settled privately; 31 were dismissed at hearing or otherwise not taken forward; and 93 cases are still pending. I do not have figures to hand regarding the Sex Discrimination Act, but I will try and find them and let the noble Baroness know. It seems that so far the legislation is working pretty well. The noble Baroness referred to the business grounds for rejecting an application. As I said in our earlier debate, it is no light thing for an employer not to deal with this issue in a proper, sensible way. Most employers I know do not want to go to an employment tribunal. I agree with the last point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, when she said that many of our most successful companies have adopted flexible working practices. That is absolutely right. Whether it is a question of flexible working, health and safety or healthy work, I am convinced that the best companies know that investment in those areas produces a much more productive, happier and contended workforce; higher productivity; and higher profits. There is no question that we want to encourage that, but there is a balance to be drawn between encouragement and statutory responsibilities. We think that we have drawn the right balance here. I realise I am straying back on to the last group of amendments. With regard to the question of evidence on how flexible working has gone so far, I hope that, although we do not want to go down the path the noble Baroness has raised, I have convinced her that we are monitoring and evaluating, and we will be producing something in the summer on this subject.