Flexibility makes for good work, strong families and thriving communities

By Stephen Timms MP and Ian Murray MP

The Christmas period reminds us that modern life can be busy, hurried and demanding. The pressures of work, demands of family life and hectic Christmas schedules can prove stretching as we juggle competing demands.

Increasingly the need for flexible work is driven by the complex shape of people’s lives; as parents go to work, struggle to make ends meet, perform career roles, take their children to school and activities and try and carve out time for much needed rest and leisure. Yet, for many work-life balance is not a reality. The culture of low pay, workplace insecurity and longer working hours are all making it harder for people to balance work and family life under this government. There is an urgent need to ensure that flexibility and family friendly policies become a stronger feature of the modern workplace.

This is an agenda which the Labour Party is committed to. We are concerned that Britain embraces good work. This has many facets; tackling long-term unemployment through the Compulsory Job Guarantee, eliminating low pay through a stronger National Minimum Wage and providing protection for employees from exploitation through strong minimum standards at work and robust health and safety standards.

This is why we welcome Gingerbread’s recent #flexiwork day. It is an ideal opportunity at a demanding time to promote the numerous benefits that flexible working can yield for employees and employers.

Helping support family-friendly business practices and better childcare provision are key planks of Labour’s plan to tackle the cost-of-living crisis facing families. Family-friendly practices are good for firms and the economy as well as for family life.

Flexible working practises and meaningful family friendly policies should constitute a broader vision of what makes for good work. The task of defining what constitutes ‘good work’ was underlined by the recent Smith Institute report Making Work better:an agenda for government’ which takes a hard look at the problems in today’s workplace and aims to promote an agenda to ‘..make work better and support the shift to a new economy’.  The report asks some pertinent questions about the right to request flexible working and made the link between flexible working and carers needs, both in terms of eldercare and childcare.

work home

We are the party of work and this agenda is important to us.  In Government, Labour transformed the rights for women and families in order to help balance earning a living and caring for their family.  Over thirteen years, Labour extended paid maternity leave to nine months, the right to take maternity leave up to twelve months and gave new entitlements for fathers to paternity leave and pay.

It was also a Labour Government which introduced the right to request flexible working.  In 2009, this was extended to parents with children up to the age of 16.  We introduced a right to request flexible working to people with caring responsibilities for disabled or elderly relatives and to parents with disabled children up to the age of 18. It was the Conservatives who voted against the introduction of paternity leave, the extension of maternity leave and the right to request flexible working.

We have recently supported regulations to reform the work-life balance for families including measures concerning Shared Parental Leave. We did so in the belief that Mothers and Fathers want to spend time with their young children and combine a healthy family life with a fulfilling working life. Shared parental leave is a step towards enabling parents to have greater choice over how they balance work and family life between them, and that is to be welcomed.

On childcare Labour oversaw an expansion of early years education; more childcare; tax credits and vouchers to help meet costs and free early education for three and four year olds. Our extended schools programme helped parents access before and after school care.

We are proud of our record on this issue but not satisfied. There is much more to do.

This is why in February this year Labour held a ‘Family Summit’, with employers, family organisations, trade unions and professional bodies to investigate how we can pioneer a transformation that delivers benefits for business and employees. There are many generous and forward thinking employers who have survived the rigours of the economic downturn and retained their commitment to family-friendly practises.  Business can make a real difference to making family life more manageable and government has a role too. It is Labour’s view that we need to ensure that regulation is appropriate, that the right support, including childcare is in place to facilitate flexible working.

Labour’s desire to see workplaces which support family life is why we support Gingerbread’s #Flexiwork day. It highlights the possibilities for workers and organisations if the benefits of flexible working can be applied in an appropriate manner. The campaign has underlined the benefits that could be yielded such as a happier and more productive workforce, less stressful and more healthy employees and perhaps most importantly the possibility of greater access to family time. You cannot put a price on having unrushed and unhurried time with loved ones.

Labour will establish a new compact between employers, government and parents to bring about a culture change that helps firms champion family friendly practices that will help their businesses grow, give parents choices about returning to work and managing caring responsibilities throughout their lives, and ensure that government fulfils its responsibility to get the right childcare infrastructure in place to support and grow the economy.

Labour will oversee the extension of free childcare for three and four year olds with parents in work from 15 to 25 hours. We will also introduce a law a primary childcare guarantee ensuring that parents have a new right to before and after school care from their local school or nearby. This will help parents manage the struggle of arranging childcare that meets their family’s requirements.

We need a vision of good work, of dignity in the workplace where people have choice and control over the hours they work and a real voice in their place of work. This can enable people to fulfil caring and familial responsibilities and make for good, productive and fulfilling workplaces.

Rt Hon Stephen Timms MP, Shadow Minister for Employment and Ian Murray MP, Shadow Business Minister for Trade and Investment

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