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Rob Marris (Wolverhampton, South-West) (Lab): Does my hon. Friend think that it would assist the rights of consumers if we legislated to require that all toys and items of personal grooming should come supplied with batteries?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I suggest that the Minister should not be tempted down that line.
Mr. Sutcliffe: I accept what you say, Mr. Deputy Speaker. On regulation, however, we never hear from the Opposition which regulations they want to be passed.
There is a question as to why the Bill is concerned only with large shops. My answer is that of course we do not believe that every shop should be closed on Christmas day. We believe that the right balance is struck by the exemptions.
The Bill is important and I hope it gets the support of the House today. The vast majority of people—97 per cent.—want Christmas day to be kept special and we
should support the Bill. In the past, Governments were neutral on the issue but this Government fully support my hon. Friend's Bill. That is why we have been working with him to make sure that the Bill is put together successfully. There is more work to be done in Committee, but I wish the Bill well.11.46 am
Mr. Kevan Jones: With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I wish to reply to some comments made in the debate today. It has been a good debate, showing the cross-party support for the Bill. The debate has also shown that support for the Bill is inspired not only by the trade unions. Many people support the Bill because of their religious convictions, while others want the traditional nature of Christmas day to be retained.
The hon. Members for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Atkinson) and for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) spoke about the special nature of Christmas from a Christian perspective, which is very important to many people from all Churches. We should not forget that we are a broadly Christian nation, something we should all cherish.
The hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) holds deep religious beliefs, which came out in his speech today. The hon. Gentleman is a loss to the trade union movement, as he was eloquent about recruiting retail workers; USDAW will soon be knocking on his door for assistance.
The hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) referred to Stan's Shop, I think on two separate occasions. He will be very popular the next time he goes into Stan's Shop for the free publicity that he has given that retail outlet today. He made a point about rural areas, and I accept that in some rural areas there are not the large retail outlets that exist in many urban areas. We could perhaps look at some of those issues in Committee, but we need to be careful. I know that there is a tradition in many rural areas—and also in many urban areas—of shops closing on a Wednesday afternoon to allow their workers to have time off because they work on Saturday mornings. That tradition still exists in some areas, and long may it be cherished, because it allows people who work in the retail trade to be compensated for having to work on a Saturday, a day that many other people—not Members of Parliament, I should add—can cherish. We already have a tradition in this country, which I think is more prevalent in rural areas, that shops do still close sometimes.
The reason why large shops are specified is quite clear. A small neighbourhood shop that is run by a family is mainly staffed by its owners and their family, whereas Stan's Shop and others of such a large size will have to bring in employees who are not family members. This Bill wants to protect those people from being forced to work on Christmas day.
Mr. Paterson: The hon. Gentleman is wrong on that point—most of the people who come in on Christmas day in the business to which I have referred are members of the original family. My point is that that is a small family business that has been immensely successful and
is now a big one. It occupies a big area, but it has all the attributes of a small family business that the hon. Gentleman seems to admire.
Mr. Jones: The hon. Gentleman has now got his third plug for Stan's Shop in this debate; his discount is going to be very good when he next goes there. The important point is that that is clearly not a small shop if it is the size that he has claimed. I am quite prepared, however, to consider issues of rurality.
Lembit Öpik: The hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) mentioned Harry Tuffins, which is a fantastic shop, but it originated in the constituency of Montgomeryshire.
Mr. Jones: At this rate, I am sure that some Opposition Members will get good discounts when they go in all these stores. However, I am glad that I have had the opportunity to allow the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik) to make that point, so that he gets it recorded in Hansard.
I thank my hon. Friends the Members for West Lancashire (Mr. Pickthall) and for Stockport (Ms Coffey) for their contributions. They have a long, proud tradition of association with USDAW, and I know that my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire has been very active not just in helping to protect Christmas day but in other campaigns such as the "Freedom from Fear" campaign to stop violence against shop workers, which USDAW has rightly been pressing.
My hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North (Mr. Gardiner) referred to the multicultural nature of his constituency and the fact that people cherish Christmas day, irrespective of their religious faith. That is an important point. In the consultation, the Department of Trade and Industry received no representations from any groups objecting to the Christmas day provisions in the Bill.
Welcome points have been made about trade unions, and we had some good speeches in support of trade unions from Conservative Members.
Sir Patrick Cormack: I cannot let this opportunity pass without putting on record the gratitude that the House ought to feel to the late Sir Raymond Powell, who campaigned for so long against Sunday trading on behalf of USDAW.
Mr. Jones: I was only just elected at the time, so I did not have the honour of knowing Sir Raymond, but the work that he did to try to protect shop workers who worked on Sundays is on the record.
I welcome the important fact that some Conservative Members are now arguing for regulation. The hon. Member for West Derbyshire (Mr. McLoughlin) suggested that the legislation could extend to catering workers. I do not necessarily disagree with that, in that I want to protect people's employment rights, and I should be interested to see any regulations that Conservative Members wanted to introduce to prevent the exploitation of people who work in such trades.
The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire gave the Bill the support of the Liberal Democrats, which I welcome. That reinforces the fact that the Bill has cross-party support.
It would be remiss of me not to mention the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), for whom I have much respect. I even have a sneaking admiration for the front that he puts on and his passionate beliefs. We saw today the divisions in the Conservative party—they exist in every party—between the traditional Conservatives represented by the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) and the libertarian wing represented by the right hon. Gentleman. I do not agree that we want a society that allows people to do anything they want—that is the logical conclusion to libertarianism. That would mean youngsters still being put up chimneys and the excellent Factories Acts and other measures mentioned by the hon. Member for Canterbury not being on the statute book. That is not a society in which I would like to live.
Paul Farrelly: Does my hon. Friend agree that the so-called libertarian tendency really believes in freedom for the very few and a lack of it for the very many, and especially those on low pay?
Mr. Jones: Yes, that is reflected in the premise that we are all individuals and there is no such thing as society—something with which I do not agree. I think it was Hobbes who said that man's existence in such a situation was poor, nasty, brutish and short. I do not believe that many hon. Members would wish to live in such a society.
Mr. Forth: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his kind remarks, but to put the record straight, even we libertarians occasionally see where our duty lies. I, for example, voted against the lowering of the age of consent, because I thought it proper for the law to protect young people, sometimes from themselves.
Mr. Jones: I am grateful for that clarification—clearly libertarianism has its bounds.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned Costco. That is covered, because if people shopped there on Christmas day and purchased retail goods, the provisions in the Bill would apply. The only thing that would be excluded would be if they were buying goods for retail sale afterwards.
The hon. Member for Canterbury spoke well. He is a true believer in the Bill. He is possibly part of a dying breed, as a traditional one-nation Conservative with a compassionate side. That tendency was in the wilderness in the 1980s and the 1990s. I agree with him about the distribution industry. Pressure is not only on shops but on distribution networks to get the goods to those shops on Sundays. That is exacerbated by the procedure of delivering goods just in time rather than storing them at the point of sale. We cannot include the distribution network in the Bill, but I would be pleased to support any regulations suggested by the Conservative party or the hon. Gentleman personally to deal with the working hours of people employed in distribution.
The hon. Gentleman spoke about rurality. I accept, as someone with a rural constituency, albeit with urban problems, that there is a different dimension to life in rural areas. Perhaps we can examine that in Committee.
I again commend the Bill to the House.
Bill accordingly read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 63 (Committal of Bills).
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