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7 Feb 2003 : Column 542—continued
Mr. Desmond Swayne (New Forest, West): It seems self-evident that this relates to the effect of alcohol. Clearly, the Scots are much more capable of holding their drink.
David Cairns: I think that that is the essence of what my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary was saying, but I am happy with the hon. Gentlemen's suggestion.
The other clauses deal with commencement and an allowance for any provisional or transitional arrangements necessary. That is basically it. Should this Bill succeed, those who currently work in shops on Sunday will have the right to inform their superiors that they no longer wish to do so. This law has worked well in England and Wales for more than eight years. There is not a shred of evidence that it has affected profits or productivity. No one, to my knowledge, has even suggested that the law, as it applies in England and Wales, should be repealed. If businesses in England, Wales and Northern Ireland can make these provisions work, Scottish businesses will certainly not struggle to do so. Good companies have nothing to fear; they would not dream of forcing their employees to work on Sundays against their wishes.
The Bill will have an impact on businesses, however, so I welcome the Government initiative to launch a wide-ranging consultation. The Scotland Office has more resources than I have, so I am happy to allow the consultation to be the major route through which opinion can be expressed, although I remain happy to respond to direct approaches from interested parties. The deadline for the consultation should be before the Bill is debated in Committee, and I will readily consider any amendment that may be necessary as a result of responses to the consultation.
This is a straightforward and, I hope, uncontroversial measure. It extends legislation enacted by the previous Conservative Government, and enjoys support in all parts of the House. At heart, it addresses a basic unfairness. It is simply unjust that shop workers in Greenwich enjoy rights that shop workers in Greenock do not. The time has come to end this unfairness. I commend the Bill to the House.
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Malcolm Bruce (Gordon): I shall be brief, not least because there are other Bills before us. I congratulate the hon. Member for Greenock and Inverclyde (David Cairns) on a welcome Bill that commands widespread support among Liberal Democrats, and probably on both sides of the House.
I was one of those who, in the debate on liberalising Sunday trading, voted for the most liberal outcome. I accept, however, that the universal view in the House at that time was that people's right not to work on Sundays should be protected. I also accept that many of us realised that an anomaly would arise in Scotland in due course.
Some of the Argos employees affected were constituents of mine, and the matter was drawn to my attention. I am frankly astonished that Argos managed its affairs so badly: that was bad people management, regardless of the law.
For all practical purposes—this argument applied at the time of the last debate, but I think that it is no longer relevant—there has been no difficulty in finding people who are willing to work on Sundays. Indeed, for a variety of reasons, some prefer to do so. The ability of any business to manage more liberal trading hours in ways that still respect the rights of its employees not to work on Sundays if they do not wish to is transparent. In those circumstances, it is surely right to introduce a Bill that will harmonise the laws.
As the hon. Gentleman says, this is a reserved matter for the United Kingdom. It cannot be right for England and Scotland to have different rules for the protection of workers. The Bill is well timed and has been well presented. I hope that it has the full support of the House.
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Mr. Frank Doran (Aberdeen, Central): I too congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow on his success in the ballot, and on his choice of subject. The Bill, as he said so eloquently, addresses a serious anomaly.
I have an interest apart from my general interest in employment rights. Three of the 11 Argos workers who were threatened with dismissal for refusing to accept the company's terms were my constituents. I contacted Argos when the issue arose, and was shocked at the response that I received from Mr. Terry Duddy, its chief executive. I was shocked for two reasons. There was a suggestion that consultation had taken place, although all the information received from my constituents and from the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers indicated that there had been virtually no consultation. There had been discussions, but they were take-it-or-leave-it discussions.
I was also shocked by what Mr. Duddy's letter said about the rights of staff. He wrote:
- "All staff with religious or extremely difficult family situations have been supported and excluded where necessary."
I met USDAW representatives with local officials and my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Savidge), who, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Mr. Brown), has pursued the campaign. They too should be congratulated on the way in which they have conducted it. I see the Bill as a noble outcome to that campaign. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland took up the cudgels, but my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow has dealt with the details very appropriately.
Jim Sheridan (West Renfrewshire): May I point out for the sake of clarity that our hon. Friend's constituency is Greenock and Inverclyde?
Mr. Doran: When I arrived here in 1987, it was Greenock and Port Glasgow, but I thank my hon. Friend for correcting me.
I will not go into the details already dealt with by my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Inverclyde (David Cairns), but, as I said, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State took up the cudgels. She gave the Argos chief executive what could be described as a good talking to, as only she can. That produced a very positive result: Argos withdrew. As my hon. Friend said, however, this is not about one company but about fundamental rights for workers.
I want to make two straightforward points. My hon. Friend made the pertinent point that at the time of what became the Sunday Trading Act 1994 there was a consensus in the House about those fundamental rights, but during the pre-legislative consultation they were not included in the Bill. A strong campaign was required, partly by the Opposition but mainly by the shop workers' union. It was led by the union's then assistant general secretary, Sir Bill Connor, now general secretary.
Two things are notable. First, the then Conservative Government recognised the importance of the issue and accepted representations on it. Secondly, the Bill could not possibly have been passed in its original form, because just as many Conservative Members as Opposition Members were concerned about employees being forced to work on Sundays.
My second point is that there is a fundamental reason for the reserving of employment rights to Westminster. They are reserved because they are seen as fundamental. The Government's current employment policies could be summarised as an attempt to create a flexible labour market with minimum standards. Those standards, too, are fundamental: that is why we introduced the Employment Rights Act 1999, the minimum wage
legislation, the working time regulations and the parental leave provisions. All those were introduced to provide a floor for employment rights.The Argos case has highlighted the difficulty caused by the difference between the arrangements in Scotland and those in the rest of Great Britain. That difference is unacceptable, because it breaches that principle of a floor of minimum standards, and because it removes the level playing field that should exist in employment rights. We cannot afford to allow different terms and conditions of employment in different areas. As those of us with trade union connections know very well, if managements want to save costs, the first thing they look at is terms and conditions. We cannot allow that to happen on a cross-border basis.
Angus Robertson (Moray): I agree wholeheartedly with what the hon. Gentleman has said so far and I support the Bill, but given that we now have a European single market, does it not make sense to extend minimum rights throughout not just the United Kingdom but the European Union?
Mr. Doran: I do not think that Sunday trading is a problem on the continent. It is certainly not a problem in the way that it has been here, but of course there are certain basic rights that should apply throughout the European Union. A number have already been implemented: one of the Government's first acts was to sign up to the social chapter, since when we have progressively implemented other rights. Mine is a simple point. These are basic rights, and we cannot afford to allow regional variations.
The consensus reached in 1994, which gave important employment protection to shop workers by statute in England and Wales and by agreement in Scotland, was broken by Argos. It is no accident that Argos took that action. It was necessary only to read the financial pages to see that its trading performance was causing concern. The management looked for cost savings, and looked first where—as I said earlier—most managers look: the terms and working conditions of their employees.
If it had not been Argos that broke the consensus, however, another company would have. The lesson to learn is that there are certain fundamental rights that workers should have by law. One is the right for each individual to decide whether or not to work on Sundays. The last Conservative Government gave that right to workers in England and Wales; my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Inverclyde—with, I am sure, support from this Labour Government—will give it to workers in Scotland.
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