To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many parents of young children have exercised their right to request flexible working in (a) Newport East constituency and (b) Wales since the introduction of that right. (303499)

I have been asked to reply.

The new employment rights introduced on April 2003 gave parents of children under six and disabled children under 18 the right to request flexible working. This was extended to carers in April 2007 and parents of children aged 16 and under in April 2009. The proportion of employees with children (under 16 years old) who have requested to work flexibly by region and nation in Great Britain are provided in the following table. These figures are from the Flexible Working Survey (2005). However information is not available for Newport East and due to a small sample size of respondents in Wales reliable information is only available for all employees' requests for flexible working, not those employees with children.

Later information comes from the Work Life Balance Survey (2006), which asked 2,081 employees in Great Britain whether they made a request in the last two years to change their working arrangements. Again, the relative small sample size representing Wales means reliable statistics are not available for parents of young children; however the survey found that 18 per cent. of all respondents in Wales requested flexible working, 17 per cent. for all of Great Britain.