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11.3 am
Mr. Barry Gardiner (Brent, North) (Lab): It gives me great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), who, like me, regularly attends Friday morning debates. We have some of the most interesting, colourful and best debates on such occasions because they are traditionally unwhipped. He is a master of Friday mornings and knows the procedures of the House better than most, if not any. It was interesting to note the way in which he decided to terminate his remarks. Many hon. Members will be grateful that he does not want to filibuster and to talk the Bill out. He realises that that would be otiose and not in keeping with the will and mood of the Chamber.
I, too, do not wish to detain the House for long. I wish the Bill the speediest of passages, both today and in future. However, many comments by hon. Members on both sides of the House related to the specifically Christian nature of the celebration of the high holy day of Christmas. I speak not simply as a practising Christian, but as a representative of the most ethnically diverse and multicultural borough in Britain and, indeed, Europe. Brent has more than 120 different first languages spoken in its schools. We have every faith that it is possible to conceive of in our borough. Yet not one person has opposed the Bill on the ground of respect for different cultures and faiths.
Helen Jones (Warrington, North) (Lab): Does my hon. Friend agree that many other faiths support the Bill because they also want Christmas day preserved as a family holiday? In addition, they do not want the taxpayer to incur the extra cost that would arise from large stores opening on Christmas day, which would require normal council services, such as waste disposal and street cleaning, to be in place.
Mr. Gardiner: My hon. Friend makes an important point. She encapsulates the one thing that I wanted to talk about: respect for the family, which underpins all the different religious traditions and communities that are represented in my borough. It is because of that respect for the family—because people realise that there should be, in any culture, one day on which the family is paramount—that people of different faiths have chosen to support the Bill, and I am delighted that they have done so.
It is clear from the nature of large work forces that the idea that shop workers can simply decide whether they want to work on Christmas day—that they can volunteer—is ridiculous. We all know the pressures that exist in any workplace. People who do not volunteer are marked down for the future and their managers look at them less favourably when it comes to promotions. It may well be that my own lack of volunteering is responsible for me languishing on the Back Benches week after week.
I hope that hon. Members who want to divide the House and who will go into the Lobby against the Bill will consider, when they think of the freedoms that they believe themselves to be fighting for, the way in which those shop workers are being denied their freedoms.
Mr. Forth: Will the hon. Gentleman comment on what I said about the effectiveness of the protections that are given in schedule 4 to the 1994 Act, and the role of the trade union? Is he completely happy that the trade union that is behind the Bill has done everything in its power to make the provisions effective? If not, what is the solution?
Mr. Gardiner: I have a different view of the role of trade unions in this country from that of the right hon. Gentleman. He always sees trade unions as an oppressive force in society.
Mr. Gardiner: The right hon. Gentleman acknowledges that he does so, but I see trade unions as
the organisations that have fought for workers' rights for more than a century and achieved many progressive measures to emancipate the work force. It is essential to understand that trade unions, and particularly USDAW, seek to protect the situation of their members. They do not want workers in large stores and shops coerced, albeit by managers who say, "Of course you have a choice," in the full and certain knowledge that if they exercise that choice in one direction they will ultimately be penalised and have it marked on their cards against them. If the right hon. Gentleman is not prepared to accept that, I am sorry but we must disagree.Many Labour Members have experience, to which the right hon. Gentleman has alluded, as members of USDAW or other unions or from a retailing background. They have seen such pressures being applied. They know that that is the way that things operate. Earlier in our debate, one of my hon. Friends commented on how this House operates—we all know the pressures that a one or two-line Whip can impose to make sure that Members are here. Even if a three-line Whip does not apply, there are always pressures on people to vote, and that happens with retail management too.
To return to my central point, all communities recognise the importance of family and of having one day on which people take care of each other, come together, and are not subject to the commercial pressures that we see throughout society during the rest of the year: one day on which family is sacred. The hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Atkinson) spoke of his experience of opening a petrol station for just a couple of hours on Christmas morning. The service that he provided enabled families to come together. On Christmas day, families need to travel to see distant relatives or to come to the main family house for Christmas lunch, so that the whole family can be united on that day. That is why I agree wholeheartedly with him that that is an honourable and welcome exception to the Bill, which should not restrict petrol stations that provide that service. It goes to the heart of what the Bill is about: the nature of family and bringing families together on one day a year without commercial pressures.
It is wrong that people should be discouraged, that there should be alternative attractions to go out and engage in commercial activity on Christmas day and that large stores should be open, vying for custom. That is not why I support the Bill, however. I recognise what the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst says: if people want to go out and engage in commercial activity when it is available, that is a decision for them. But the point is that the work force are being coerced on those days when they find it difficult if not impossible to refuse. It is their families whom I seek to protect, and whom my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) seeks to protect through his Bill.
Many stores have said that they have no desire to open and compete on Christmas day, but if one of them does, the others will feel obliged to do so to protect their position because commercial margins are so tight. They want us to legislate, to step in and say, "No. We will protect this time, which is for family." My hon. Friend has done the House a great service by promoting this Bill.
The Ministers on the Front Bench are raring to wind up this debate, and I have no intention or desire to prolong it. The House should have the opportunity to vote on this important matter, and I am confident that my hon. Friend's Bill will be passed.
11.15 am
Mr. Patrick McLoughlin (West Derbyshire) (Con): I want to speak briefly on this Bill. I will not speak for as long as the hon. Gentleman who spoke previously.
I welcome the Bill. Should there be a Division, I will support it. But I would also like one change to be made in Committee. A great number of people work on Christmas day in the catering trade, and in the forces, where cover must be provided. For the catering trade, I would like an amendment to protect those who work on Christmas day. At the moment, there is a national minimum wage, but it does not reflect statutory holidays or working on statutory holidays. I believe that Christmas day is particularly important, and there is a case for reflecting that in the Bill for people who work in the catering trade on that day. The matter should be discussed in Committee. I will not delay the Bill further, having made those small points.
11.16 am
Shona McIsaac (Cleethorpes) (Lab): I, too, shall be brief in my words of support for the Bill.
This is in essence a simple measure that deals with the anomaly of the Sunday Trading Act 1994 that prevents stores from opening on Christmas day unless it falls on a Sunday. I cannot understand how anybody can vote against a measure that puts right that anomaly, and neither will the millions of shop workers, who are largely women workers who already have a great deal of pressure on them at Christmas because they are responsible for organising Christmas day and bringing the family together. I therefore support the Bill totally.
Christmas is already the busiest time of year for shop workers, and most of them are not allowed to take annual leave in the final weeks of December because the stores are so busy. They must have Christmas day protected for that reason, too. I was imagining earlier what would happen if stores opened on Christmas day. I envisaged a scenario in which families would open their gifts in the morning, have their lunch and all be down the shops in the afternoon returning the Christmas presents they did not want. That would destroy the whole essence of Christmas day and family life, so I hope that this Bill speedily passes into law.
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