If, like me, you’re still munching the Easter egg dregs, you’ll agree it’s possible to have too much of a good thing. It seems John Hutton, secretary of state for business, enterprise and regulatory reform (BERR), thinks the same about the statutory right of employees to request flexible working.

Hutton reckons the right – introduced five years ago for employees with children aged under six or disabled, and extended last year for those with an adult to care for – has greatly benefited working parents, carers and employers alike. The law has pushed on an open door, with hardly any requests from among the 6 million eligible employees being turned down and the use of flexible-working practices on the increase. But when it comes to the case for going further, as advocated by voices as diverse as the TUC, the CIPD and the Conservative Party, he urges caution. The danger, the business secretary warns, is that employers could be so overwhelmed by requests that they will reject more and find it harder to decide which to accept.

Rather than simply extend the right to all workers – as the CIPD and TUC would like to see – or automatically adopt Tory policy and include all working parents, Hutton is waiting at the checkout to hear what Imelda Walsh, J Sainsbury’s HR director, has to say. Her soon-to-be-published independent review – announced by Gordon Brown last November with a fanfare of work-life balance rhetoric – has been skillfully reined in so as not to frighten the horses. Walsh’s task is essentially to recommend whether, and by how much, the current child age limit of six years for eligibility to the right to request should be raised. Extending the right to parents with a child in primary school would make more than 2 million more employees eligible. Drawing in parents who need to cope with hormone-crazed or binge-drinking adolescents would increase the number still further.

It’s likely that, following the Walsh review, ministers will raise the age limit. My hunch is that this will happen in stages with an age ceiling probably set at 14. The business lobby should be able to live with this while the Conservatives will claim that the government has moved in their direction. The CIPD and flexible work lobbyists will be immensely disappointed, contending that such a half-hearted move risks creating a divided two-tier workforce, with childless workers feeling hard done by and employers under little pressure to move faster on introducing progressive working time practices. Yet despite this, one can appreciate the rationale for taking a cautious step-by-step approach to this policy.

Policy makers need to strike a sensible balance between improving working conditions and not putting an undue burden on business. Moreover, the common good requires that the priority should be to help working parents to rear the next generation of citizens and for working carers to support the needs of sick, frail and elderly relatives. From a public policy perspective this is far more important than making it easier for those without such responsibilities to juggle work with leisure activities.

There is, of course, a strong business case for helping all staff achieve a better work-life balance. The CIPD and other like-minded bodies are right to make this case to employers as loudly as possible. But when it comes to placing further legal obligations on employers, ministers are wise to prefer limited change to gung-ho intervention. Those who advocate flexible working should therefore themselves be flexible and understanding in their response to the government’s stance on extending the right to request.