Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Bill will pave the way for a more inclusive and productive workforce

We welcome the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Bill receiving Royal Assent (20 July) and becoming law.

Flexible working options enhances employment opportunities. They particularly help all those with caring responsibilities, whether for the elderly or the young. New mothers will welcome the day one right to work more flexibly; and fathers can now seek more flexible working arrangements too.

This will help to reduce pay gaps between the sexes and enable parents better to share the care of their children, and adults better to look after their ageing relatives.

The new law will also benefit older workers, and offer greater flexibility to disabled workers too, as a reasonable adjustment to help them to take up and stay in work. This will help to reduce the large pay gap between disabled and non-disabled people in Britain.

There are other benefits too. Flexible working arrangements have been shown to bring greater job satisfaction, better relationships at work, and improved trust in employers. And, if flexible working arrangements are offered, employers will benefit by attracting a wider pool of potential applicants.

The new law is a good step. But the EHRC has called for more.

Employers should be required to offer all jobs, even senior roles, on a flexible basis unless there is a genuine business reason not to do so.

We look forward to seeing the new law work in practice and will be monitoring the impact of these measures to assess how effective they are in the actual workplace and see if greater powers are needed.

We also we encourage employers to revise their policies and staff terms and conditions to take account of the new legislation.