Working parents are to be granted the right to request time off work to care for their children, under new guidelines announced today.

Trade and industry secretary Patricia Hewitt has set out the "family friendly" policy alongside a report from the government's work and parents taskforce.

"Families have changed enormously over the last 20 to 30 years and workplaces have still got to catch up. Good employers are already doing it because they realise that flexibility actually gives them a better motivated workforce as well as being better for families," she said.

Nearly 3.8 million parents will be eligible for the "right to ask" and Hewitt signalled that 82 per cent of companies are expected to consent.

Under the new guidelines fathers will get legal protection for seeking shorter working hours after childbirth and working mothers will get more rights under a statutory code of practice to help parents balance work with family life.

But, as widely predicted, the measures fall short of giving parents the right to insist on time off and employers can refuse requests if they give written reasons that it damages their business. Companies are to be monitored on the guidelines by government and employees can take their boss to an employment tribunal if the code of practice is breached.

"It is not the Government's job to tell parents how to lead their lives. But it is our job to provide them with more choice," said Hewitt.

"Fathers and mothers want more choice about how they balance work and family and the best businesses have already discovered that flexibility works for businesses as well as individuals. If we rely on best practice alone it will be 20 years before we see flexibility being the norm.

"I don't want parents to have to wait 20 years - so today's proposals will accelerate flexible working by a generation," she said.

The "right to ask" has disappointed family campaigners seeking a failsafe guarantee that working parents could go part-time. There are also concerns that the new guidelines will only apply to the parents of pre-school children under six-years, limiting the scope of the measures as less than half the mothers of under-fives are in employment.

But shadow trade and industry secretary John Whittingdale MP gave a cautious welcome to the proposals, indicating they had struck a fair balance between the needs of families nad employers.

"However, the hidden danger of the duty to consider requests to work flexible hours is that yet more workers and employers end up at employment tribunals. The fact that the Department of Trade and Industry is simultaneously seeking to cut the number of tribunal cases demonstrates the government's contradictory approach to employment law," he said.

TUC general secretary John Monks gave cautious welcome to the new measures, saying they were a "useful first step". He predicted that employers will gain from adopting flexible working and said there would be "every reason" to extend the new right to parents of children older than six

"The new law gives employees and employers the framework to sort out new work patterns that suit everyone. It is a useful first step. We welcome the government's commitment to review how today's measures work in practice, including the upper age cut off," he said.

The CBI also gave its backing to the plans, describing them as a "workable deal" for employers and employees. "The government has clearly been listening to the problems of business at this difficult time," said director general Digby Jones.

"Ministers were quite right not to allow tribunals to overturn management decisions. After all, firms are best-placed to make a judgement and they have no reason to refuse unless it harms the business. It would not have been realistic for tribunals to second guess a company's view. Even so, we need to remember that this new right will be more burdensome for smaller businesses," said Jones.