Any change to the law to allow for working from home to become the “default” option will allow for “company-specific” approaches, a Treasury minister has stressed, as he rejected claims it would create a “zombie nation”.
Former CBI director general Sir Digby Jones that leaked proposals for a change in law, which would make it impossible for employers to force their staff into the office for all but essential reasons, would return Britain to “the enervating era of the British disease of the 1970s”.
Writing in the Daily Mail, the former trade minister warned it would create “a zombie nation that no longer functions as a vibrant, essential destination for international capital and foreign visitors”.
But Jesse Norman, the financial secretary to the Treasury, said: “Digby is a man of extremely colourful opinions and occasionally accurate ones. This may suit some people, and not others, but… companies have no interest in going backwards.”
Any change to guidance would respect the fact that “every company is going to want to have different approaches”, he added, although highlighted the manifesto commitment on flexible working.
He told Sky News: “Working from home gave benefits, benefits to the economy as well as personal ones”.
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Any change to the law to allow for working from home to become the "default" option will allow for "company-specific" approaches, a Treasury minister has stressed, as he rejected claims it would create a "zombie nation".
