House of Commons
Friday 26 March 2004
The House met at half-past Nine o'clock
PRAYERS
The Chairman of Ways and Means took the Chair as Deputy Speaker, pursuant to the Standing Order.
[Sir Alan Haselhurst in the Chair]
Orders of the Day
Christmas Day (Trading) Bill
Order for Second Reading read.
9.34 am
Mr. Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I am pleased to be able to propose the Bill and I thank its sponsors, the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ms Coffey), the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack), my hon. Friends the Members for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Crausby) and for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth)—who cannot be here this morning—my hon. Friends the Members for Warrington, North (Helen Jones), for West Lancashire (Mr. Pickthall), for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) and for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Watson), and finally the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton).
The Bill has cross-party support in the House and has a lot of support in the country among trade unions and people working in the retail trade, but it also has resonance in the faith communities and the Churches, from whom I have received many letters of support. The Bill resonates with ordinary people who want to protect Christmas day as that one day in the year on which they can come together with their families to cherish a special day.
Christmas is about giving gifts, but many of us think it is more than just another shopping day. Certainly many in this House and the country do not think that giving gifts and the commercialism of Christmas should be at the expense of those who work in the retail industry. USDAW, the shop workers union, represents 2.6 million workers—not just in the retail trade, but in the distribution industry—and it supports the Bill, as do the main established Churches. Others, including campaigns such as Keep Sunday Special, support the Bill.
That is why the Bill is important. It would allow shop workers and those in the retail trade in England and Wales to spend Christmas day with their families, something that many, including MPs, take for granted.
The Bill would prevent large shops from opening on Christmas day and would simply correct an anomaly in the Sunday Trading Act 1994 that allows shops to open on Christmas day unless it falls on a Sunday. As people would expect, the Bill is based on the provisions of the 1994 Act. The Bill will adopt the same exemptions from prohibition as contained in the Act; those will include farm shops, motorcycle supply shops, stands and exhibitions, pharmacies for the sale of medicines, shops at airports and railway stations, shops servicing ocean-going liners, and shops at petrol stations and motorway service stations. If the prohibition from opening on Christmas day is broken, the occupiers shall be liable to conviction by fine not exceeding £50,000.
Larger shops are defined in exactly the same way in the Bill as in the 1994 Act. Therefore the definition of a large shop will be one with a relevant floor space over 280 sq m, or—for the traditionalists or Eurosceptics in the House—3,000 sq ft. In the same way, the definitions of retail customer and of shop are identical to those in the 1994 Act.
Clause 2 of the Bill sets out the enforcement provisions, which will be the responsibility of local authorities, who will appoint enforcement officers. As is outlined in the explanatory notes, the enforcement will lead to a potential increase in expenditure for local authorities, but the cost will be relatively negligible.
I am sure that hon. Members will not be surprised to hear that the inspectors who would enforce this Act would have the same powers as those under the 1994 Act. Those powers would allow inspectors to enter premises in a local authority area at all reasonable hours, to view them and to take copies of records relating to any business conducted there. It would be an offence for anyone to obstruct an inspector in carrying out his or her duties.
The Bill applies only to England and Wales. In Scotland, Christmas day trading is a matter for the Scottish Executive, and I understand that a similar Bill is currently being considered there.
The principles underlying the Bill have the support of the vast majority of the country's people. Christmas day should be a unique day—the one day in the year when people can come together with their families. The Bill seeks to preserve the special nature of that day. It would also, very importantly, protect the interests of those working in the retail trade. It has been suggested that the Bill is simply a trade union Bill, promoted by USDAW. As a Labour MP and a former trade union official I would have no problem with that, but I must stress that the Bill in fact has wider support, including from the Churches and ordinary members of the public. People would be making a great mistake if they thought that the Bill was just about shop workers.
Mr. Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con): The hon. Gentleman knows that I want to support him later, in the Lobbies if necessary, but just before he leaves that point, and in order not to delay the House further, will he accept that a significant number of Members on both sides, who were present in 1994 and who are practising Christians, want to protect both Easter and Christmas day? That protection should be continued. All the Bill
does, in effect, is to enforce what was the will of the House at that time—without which the original Sunday Trading Bill would probably not have been passed.
Mr. Jones: As I was not in the House at that time, I cannot comment on the individual occasion; but I think that the hon. Gentleman is right. Most people assumed that the 1994 Act covered Christmas day, and that was certainly the sentiment of the House and of those Members who supported that Bill.
In December, I tabled early-day motion 327, which emphasised the need to protect and preserve the special nature of Christmas day and called on the Government to introduce legislation to do that. That early-day motion is supported by 199 right hon. and hon. Members of all political persuasions.
Another question that has been asked is why we should introduce the Bill now. There is evidence, from the shop workers union USDAW and other sources, that certain shops are starting to test the market and open on Christmas day. There is a danger that we could get a domino effect: once one or two shops start to open, others might start to do so as well. The market pressures on retailers could become so intense that people had to open, and before long, Christmas day would be the same as any other trading day.
This is the third time there has been an attempt to correct this anomaly in the 1994 Act. My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich introduced a similar private Member's Bill in 2001, which again had cross-party support but unfortunately ran out of time because of the general election that year. The Bill was subsequently introduced in the other place by Lord Davies of Coity, and promoted in this House by my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, North (Mr. Hughes). I put on record my tribute to those hon. Friends for their work to date to promote their Bill, although it was, unfortunately, unsuccessful.
Following that failure, the Government went out to public consultation on the provisions, to find out what people thought about ending the anomaly in the 1994 Act. The consultation showed that the vast majority of supermarkets that would be affected by the provisions did not oppose them. Some 97 per cent. of respondents, of whom 15 per cent. were major retailers, said that they favoured the introduction of restrictions on Christmas day trading. Support for legislation also came from across the retail sector. Although the Association of Convenience Stores called on the Government to take the interests of small stores into account, its chief executive, David Rae, stated that the ACS supported the proposals to prevent larger shops from opening on Christmas day.
The Department of Trade and Industry has carried out a regulatory impact assessment on the effects of introducing restrictions on Christmas day trading, and its report clearly states that the effects would be negligible. However, as I have said, we should not ignore the possibility that once certain large retailers begin to open, others might follow suit. That domino effect has already begun. In 2000, large stores such as Sainsbury's
and Woolworth's broke with tradition and carried out Christmas day opening trials in London, and there is evidence that other stores will try such experiments.
Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab): We could reach the absurd situation, if that is the thin end of the wedge—
Sir Patrick Cormack (South Staffordshire) (Con): Let us see the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Skinner: I am trying to address my hon. Friend, and trying to get in an appropriate position for the microphone.
We could finish up in the absurd situation not only of having shops open on Christmas day, but there being the likelihood of a reality TV programme showing the Member for Kensington and Chelsea working in Asda on Christmas day.
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