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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Answer of 13 December 2022 to Question 106436, whether his Department is taking steps to increase the rate of acceptance for flexible working requests.

In December, the Government published its response to a consultation that considered changes to the right to request flexible working. The response commits to a range of measures that will help to maintain and increase acceptance rates. These include:

• making the right to request flexible working a day one right;
• introducing a new requirement for employees to consult with the employee when they intend to reject their flexible working request; and
• allowing two statutory requests in any 12-month period (rather than the current one).

The response also commits to developing guidance on how to make and administer temporary requests for flexible working.