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7 Feb 2003 : Column 563—continued
Mr. Wilshire: I quite understand that and, as I said at the outset, I have no objections to the Bill in principle. It comes here because it has to, and I support it, but that is not the point that I am seeking to get the hon. Gentleman to understand. All I am saying is that what is sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander. If the argument is, "This is unfair to Scotland. Please put it right," I am happy to put it right, but I look forward to the hon. Gentlemen supporting me when I use the same argument against him by saying, "What is good enough there ought to apply to my constituency of Spelthorne."
Miss Anne Begg (Aberdeen, South): One thing that we are proud of in Scotland is that we still have a vibrant comprehensive education system, so I look forward to the hon. Gentleman thinking, "That is such a good idea in Scotland, why shouldn't it be applied in England?" Will he come to the House to advocate that as a way forward for changing the education system in England and Wales?
Mr. Wilshire: I would love to debate the failure of the Government and their education policies, but I suspect that I would not get far before you stopped me, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If the hon. Lady wants the benefit of my views on her Government's failure to get education right, I am happy to give them to her, but in the Tea Room or somewhere else, not here and now.
Mr. Forth: We are paying for that system. If we were to enjoy the same education expenditure per head as Scotland, all our taxes would have to go up dramatically.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I suggest that the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) takes the advice that he gave himself a few moments ago.
Mr. Wilshire: Yes, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I sensed a degree of restlessness and was about to do exactly that.
May I move on to the Sunday Trading Act 1994, which gives rise to the Bill? I was Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Home Office Minister responsible for taking the legislation through this place. If the hon. Member for Greenock and Inverclyde looks closely, he will see that some scars that Sir Peter Lloyd and I acquired remain fairly visible. It was quite an experience.
Mr. Swayne: I hope they still hurt.
Mr. Wilshire: They do, sometimes. I am very aware of the arguments surrounding the principle of Sunday trading.
We must be careful that when we approve the Bill, as I hope we will, we are conscious of the shortcomings that will be introduced to Scotland. The principle of making the provisions apply there is right, but those that are being added to the protections of Scottish workers are not the ones that I would want in an ideal world. I shall give the hon. Member for Greenock and Inverclyde an example.
Earlier this week, we witnessed a series of free votes. If Members ever want to know what headless chickens look like, they have only to watch this place on a free vote night. Most Divisions in the Chamber on the Sunday trading legislation were on free votes. The result was that one or two proposals got majorities, but one or two were defeated—a result that Members, whichever Lobby they voted in, may not have intended. At the end of the process, colleagues, particularly Lord Alton, saw a series of amendments dealing with worries about the legislation defeated one after the other. All of a sudden, we were overtaken by a feeling of sorrow and pity for Lord Alton.
Andrew Selous: I am aware that my hon. Friend is a member of the Opposition Whips Office, but I very much relish the opportunity for a free vote. I am sure that I am not the only Member here who believes that we think hard and seriously about which Lobby to enter on a free vote. I would not equate the term "headless chickens" with that exercise.
Mr. Wilshire: I have no doubt that my hon. Friend and a number of other Members think deeply about that and get it right, but, watching from where I do, I see one or two people whom I shall not name who are not quite so certain in their minds about what to do on such occasions. People may have argued for a free vote for a long time, but the entire argument is undermined when, as a Whip, one is approached outside the Lobby and asked, "What do we do?"
What happened on that occasion is relevant to the present Bill. Towards the end of a series of votes, we took pity on Lord Alton, thinking, "He has lost so much, we will give him something." That was the unspoken thought, however. Everyone went into a Lobby, but we managed to wreck the busiest day for garden centres by making them close on Easter Monday. We did not intend that, so when we got up next morning and read in the newspapers what we had done, we thought, "Blimey. That was not what we thought we were doing."
As long as the hon. Member for Greenock and Inverclyde is aware that importing that English and Welsh provision to Scotland means bringing a problem with it and as long as he is happy to do that, I am happy to support him. If ever I get any complaints from Scotland about not being able to buy plants over Easter, I shall blame him and say, "It wasn't me, guv." If the hon. Gentleman knows what he is doing, he has my support.
Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough): There is a tactical reason for acting in that way. I am a sponsor of the Bill, and I was assured that the rights to be given to workers in Scotland would be exactly the same as those in England. I am sure that my hon. Friend supports that point of view.
Mr. Wilshire: Absolutely right. All I seek to do is ensure that the hon. Member for Greenock and Inverclyde is aware that the Bill is not a perfect panacea and that by importing the benefits that we in England have he is importing one or two problems as well. As long as he takes responsibility for the problems when
garden centre owners beat him about the head and say, "Look what you have done to us," I am happy to support him.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mrs. Anne McGuire): May I reassure the hon. Gentleman? In Scotland, Easter Monday is not a national holiday. It is catered for under the local holiday provision. Easter Monday may be a holiday in Glasgow, but people who live there can still go to garden centres in Edinburgh, Falkirk or Stirling.
Mr. Wilshire: I am interested in that, but will the Minister reflect on whether it would be possible if the Bill became an Act? I genuinely do not know the answer, but we can leave that be. If she wants to write to me, I would be interested to hear from her.
As I understand the situation and as I remember the debates from all those years ago, two arguments were used as to why Scotland could safely be left out. One was that Sunday trading had been so long established there that it was part of Scottish life and should be left alone. Indeed, a number of Members on both sides of the House thought it a useful exercise of a weekend to travel for the purposes of observing Sunday trading in Scotland to discover whether we wanted the situation in England to be like that in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
A number of people had interesting weekends, shall I say, in those cities, and they came back to report that Scotland seemed to be perfectly all right with its shops open. There was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, and the general view was that the arrangements in place in Scotland appeared to work. The hon. Member for Greenock and Inverclyde has put a good case for saying that they do not any longer, even if they did then. That is another reason for me supporting him in principle.
Another argument that was used at the time is that the English were probably heathen while the Scots still understood the importance of the Sabbath. I did not need much persuading of that because when I was much younger I used to stay with my sister, who lived on the Moray coast. One of the summer activities that I used to enjoy was going down to Lossiemouth harbour at about quarter to midnight on a Sunday night and watching the local people shout "Heathen!" at any boat that dared to slip out of harbour before midnight.
Mr. Wilshire: My hon. Friend says, "Quite right", but I am neutral. I simply observe that when the argument was used that the Scots still respected the Sabbath, I found it quite a telling argument; I remembered that experience, so it seemed quite reasonable to exclude Scotland from the provision. However, it may now be that the fishing boats—if there are any left in Lossiemouth after the Government have sold the fishing industry down the river—go out on a Sunday and there is nobody left to shout "Heathen!" because they are all busy shopping.
I am in favour of voluntary agreements, which are far better than being dictated to by the nanny state. It seems to me that, for a period at least, the voluntary
arrangements in Scotland appear to have worked. The issue arose only recently, so since 1994 the position appears to have been all right up to a point, but we then had the Argos episode, which was at best unfortunate—other words could be used to describe it. Like everyone else, I welcome the fact that Argos has backtracked, though perhaps not as much as some people would have liked. Perhaps it has learned a lesson, but it was a bit late in the day. The Government were absolutely right to carry out a consultation exercise as a result of that episode as a problem was clearly developing.There are valid arguments about why shop workers in Scotland do not have the same protection as those in England, so the Government are entirely correct to consult. I note that the deadline for comment is 14 March, which is a month or so away. Knowing how Governments of all political persuasions work, I am sure that we will not get their considered opinion on 15 March, or even 15 April. Although the hon. Member for Greenock and Inverclyde says that when the Bill is considered in Committee he will listen, I am concerned that today's debate may be premature, and that it would have been better to discuss the matter after the deadline and in the light of the Government's comments; perhaps we could then have had a fuller debate on the issues. It may just be that when the Bill reaches Committee, debate will be limited by the time scale. The Government love guillotines: they do not like democracy, so they trample on our ability to debate issues. The Government may still be thinking about their consultation exercise when the Bill has to come out of Committee. What should we do then? There is an argument for saying that we are debating the Bill prematurely.It is not as though we cannot wait a little longer. It is not as though there is no protection for shop workers in Scotland. There is the Employment Rights Act 1996. I understand the difficulties and I know that it can be a tortuous process for a worker who is sacked for not working on a Sunday to go for a general argument of unfair dismissal. I know the difficulties in getting a tribunal to accept a claim are greater. I realise that this is not an isolated issue and that all sorts of other issues can be brought in, but if we waited a few months until the Government had finished their consultation exercise, it is not as though there would not be at least some protection. It is not as though there is currently no protection for people who are sacked for refusing to work on a Sunday. I wonder whether the Minister or the hon. Member for Greenock and Inverclyde can tell us whether the general protection offered by the Employment Rights Act has failed, or whether it has been successful up to a point. If it has been successful up to a point, there is a better argument for waiting for the results of the Government's consultation exercise.
The Bill raises some issues that need to be explored further. One that concerned me in 1994 continues to concern me now. Suppose that someone applies to work in a shop and the manager explains, "This shop is open seven days a week. We expect people to work five days out of seven and we have a rota." Suppose the applicant replies, "I entirely happy with that. I am very willing to do my share of Sundays" and is given a job on that basis. At any time afterwards, that shop worker can change his mind and give three months' notice that he no longer wants to work on a Sunday. At the time I thought that that was unreasonable and I am still worried about it. In the case of a relatively small operation that was
nevertheless big enough to be caught by the square footage limit, the bishop to whom my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West referred could suddenly arrive on the scene and convert all the workers who could then all give notice that they no longer wished to work on Sundays. That independent retailer would be in a difficult position because all the people who suddenly decided not to work on a Sunday and were protected by law would be those who had originally given an undertaking to work on a Sunday. I thought at the time, and I think now, that someone should give an indication at the point at which they are offered a job: they are entirely protected at that point.
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