Hello and welcome to a special episode of Women Report. The nature of work has changed since the pandemic, and in some cases, exposed to weakness in the experience of working for women. For some companies, eager to get back to business as usual, women are now demanding more from work, and they are leaving jobs in unprecedented numbers to get it.

How can businesses create a working environment that supports women in work and with that offer

opportunities to expand their career potential? Could they benefit from the flexibility that comes

from a hybrid office policy? At the same time it could present challenges for those with caring

responsibilities or those who may wish to stay at home when other employees would happily go into the office.

To discuss all of this, I'm joined by an expert panel.

Caroline Noakes, Conservative MP and Chair of the Women and Equality's Committee.

Tulip Sadiq, Labour MP for Hampston and Kilburn, who is both a shadow economic secretary to the Treasury and shadow cities minister. And finally, Fiona Cannon, who is the group sustainable business director for Lloyd's

Banking Group. And this podcast is kindly sponsored by Lloyd's Banking Group. So thank you for

joining me today. I suppose to kick things off. I mean, Caroline, obviously you've done lots of work

on this when it comes to select committee, how these things particularly affect women.

I mean, we are mostly out of the pandemic and we don't be able to look back on it for too long.

But just to set the scene, how has the nature of working, especially for women, changed, if at all?

The Select Committee did a massive piece of work on the gendered economic impact of COVID.

And what I have really been keen to push

following that is to say, look, let's learn the lessons. Let's take a really hideous experience

and find something that we can take from it that's positive. So look, flexibility, hybrid working,

the ability to work from home, the phenomenal way

in which we saw women rise to the challenge of homeschooling, childcare, caring for elderly parents,

whilst holding down a job at the same time, was absolute evidence that you can achieve it.

But when we start looking at how we make flexible

working the way forward in the future, it has to be proper flexibility, not just assuming

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