​Retail industry stalwart Lord Rose isn’t a fan of working from home. Indeed, the former boss of Arcadia, Marks & Spencer and Asda has warned the practice is creating a generation who are “not doing proper work”.

He’s told BBC’s Panorama programme that home working was part of the UK economy’s “general decline” and employees’ productivity was suffering as a result.

His comments come as some companies are calling for the end of remote working with Amazon and Boots now requiring their head office staff to be in the office every day.

Lord Rose, who was chief executive of Arcadia before its sale to Philip Green, of M&S and recently stepped down as the chairman of value supermarket Asda, added: “We have regressed in this country in terms of working practices, productivity and in terms of the country’s wellbeing, I think, by 20 years in the last four.”

Citing a December UK survey by the Office for National Statistics, the report claimed 26% of people said they had been hybrid-working in the prior seven days, with some days in the office and some days at home – while 13% had been fully remote and 41% had been fully office-based (the remainder were not working at the time).

It also said the shift to working from home has transformed local economies. Industry estimates indicate that vacant office space has nearly doubled since the pandemic.