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(a) who reside within the local authority area in which the large shop is situated".

In case Labour Members ask, "What about fraud?" in this case, paragraph (b) of amendment No. 11 provides that those who sign the petition must be persons

"whose names appear on the electoral register"

so I hope that will allay any fears that amendment No. 11 could be open to abuse.

Both new clause 1 and amendment No. 11 are reasonable and fair. They are designed to exempt from the Bill those shops where the view of the owner is that
 
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the shop should be exempt, but that is limited to the grounds specified in the new clause and the amendment. It would not be a case of an owner deciding of his own volition that he wanted to trade on Christmas day. If new clause 1 were accepted by the House, he would need to show that his employees are not members of the Christian faith.

I am thinking primarily of the large Asian supermarkets, of which we have very many in the United Kingdom. Most of them, in my experience, provide an excellent service. The owners do not regard themselves as bound by our traditional holidays. They do not, by and large, support the Christian religion, so why should they be covered by the Bill?

I should be interested to know why the promoter of the Bill feels that none of the provisions that he tells us are necessary should apply to Scotland, where I understand there are no rules to prevent a shop, Asian or otherwise, from opening on Christmas day. I hope that on sober reflection hon. Members will consider it appropriate to add new clause 1 and amendment No. 11 to the Bill.

Mr. Russell Brown (Dumfries) (Lab): I have some information for the right hon. Gentleman. A similar Bill is going through the Scottish Parliament to cover Scotland.

Mr. Knight: I am grateful for that information. I hope people are as tolerant in Scotland as I am seeking to make the Bill.

On amendment No. 11, if a large shop were surrounded by a God-fearing devout Christian society, it would be right and proper that it did not open on Christmas day, but if the shop were providing a valuable service in an area of mainly secular agnostic people who wanted it to open, and if the owner wanted to open and could get 1,000 people from that area to sign a petition, why should he not be allowed to do so?

Mr. Forth: Would my right hon. Friend comment on what might happen if there were a counter-petition by a similar or greater number of people of a different faith? We could get into competitive petitions, and I would be intrigued to know what might happen then.

Mr. Knight: If people were alarmed that a shop had received the requisite number of signatures on a petition, I would say to them, "Don't go shopping". Shops exist to cater for those who wish to use them. If more than 1,000 in a locality want to use a shop on Christmas day or feel that it provides a useful service on Christmas day and they have signed the petition, the shop should be allowed to open. If other people, perhaps fewer or more, do not give a hoot whether the shop is open, they are free to stay at home.

Helen Jones: Does not the right hon. Gentleman's argument fall down? The figure in his amendment bears no relation to population density, so the situation could arise where 1,000 people want a shop to open, but the
 
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vast majority of people living in that local authority area do not. Are their wishes to be overridden by the 1,000 people?

Mr. Knight: Yes, and rightly so. I make no apology for that. Shops exist to serve those who wish to use them. I am one of a minority of people in this country, I think, who have no interest whatever in football. I have not watched any of the games that are being played at present, but I would staunchly defend the right of others to do so. If I see a sign outside a public house saying, "Large-screen TV—come and watch Euro-football here", I avoid it, but I would not for a moment seek to stop those premises showing that football match to those who want to watch it. Similarly, if a shop can show that 1,000 people in the locality want the right to use its services on Christmas day, it should be allowed to open.

10 am

I wonder how many customers need to cross the threshold of a large shop to make it viable on a normal trading day—far less than 1,000, I assume. The answer is probably 100 or 150 people, assuming that they make a moderate number of purchases, so if a shop can show that 1,000 people wish it to be open and provide a service on Christmas day, it should be allowed to do so. If other people do not mind one way or the other, or would prefer the shop not to open, why should they prevent others who wish to use its services from doing so?

Mr. Kevin Hughes (Doncaster, North) (Lab): I am intrigued about the administration, red tape and bureaucracy that would be needed to administer or police the proposals. I should have thought that the right hon. Gentleman was against more red tape and bureaucracy. Can he imagine handing such a job to a local authority? It would need to appoint an officer; that is the starter for five. He or she would probably need a supervisor, and it would not be long before a whole department was needed. Will he share with the House his proposals to deal with that red tape and bureaucracy?

Mr. Knight: I know how Labour Members love red tape and bureaucracy, so if the hon. Gentleman thinks that that would be the effect, I would have thought that he would welcome these proposals—but I do not think that either proposal would take much policing. It is for each local authority to determine the surveillance that would need to be carried out. We have all heard of random checks, which are all that a local authority would need to do. Let us suppose that an authority received two petitions, each signed by 1,000 people. All that it would have to do is carry out random checks on the names on the petition to see whether they matched the electoral register. If they did not, the local authority could inform the shop owner that his petition was defective, and he was not exempt from the Act.

Similarly, if the local authority received an application from an Asian superstore, but on closer examination it turned out not to be an Asian superstore—perhaps the manager was an Asian person, but it was a normal local shop, not run by non-Christians—the local authority could determine that the provisions of new clause 1 were not met. A great
 
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bureaucracy would not be needed to administer the proposals. That may disappoint the hon. Gentleman, but both new clause 1 and amendment No. 11 are reasonable. They would restrict the scope of the Bill, so that it would not affect communities for whom Christmas day is not a special event. I should have thought that Labour Members would therefore welcome the new clause and the amendment.

Ms Coffey: If 1,000 names were on a petition to keep a shop open, but the shop staff consisted of devout Christians, what resolution would the right hon. Gentleman propose?

Mr. Knight: I cannot think of many shops that would have 1,000 employees. That would be a very large shop indeed. Perhaps the hon. Lady can give an example of a shop with 1,000 employees.

Ms Coffey: The right hon. Gentleman misunderstands my question. He is talking about making an exemption where a local petition has 1,000 names, and I am asking how he would resolve a situation when a 1,000-name petition is received to keep a shop open, yet most of its employees are devout Christians who want that day off. How would he balance those interests?

Mr. Knight: We are returning to the point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) made about worker protection if an employee does not wish to work on Christmas day. That is a totally separate argument in relation to whether the shop should be allowed to open. I would not tackle that by telling the shop owner that he cannot trade on Christmas day. That is the wrong way to deal with the situation.

Hon. Members may feel that these proposals might be unfair to members of a community who do not want a shop to open, but they should sit in the public gallery of a magistrates court dealing with licensing issues. Very often, when licensing justices are asked to renew a justices licence for a public house, petitions will be submitted to object to renewing that licence, perhaps because entertainment is put on there and noise is created. However, the very fact that someone in the community raises an objection does not automatically prevent that business from trading. Of course, if there is a demand for a large shop to open, people will say that they would rather it remained closed—particularly, perhaps, those who live next door—but, in a free society, if there is a demand for a shop to open and the owner wants to open, he should be allowed to do so.

Those hon. Members who were in the House when we first decided to tackle Sunday trading will be well aware of what we were told would happen if we opened up Sundays to allow trading. We were told that Sunday would be totally different. We would never again be able to enjoy Sunday as we knew it. Many of us received petitions signed by hundreds of people from the Churches. The Churches particularly—now it is the unions—told us that we should not tamper with the Shops Act 1950 and allow trading on Sunday, as it would destroy families: people would be forced to work, and Sunday would never be the same again. That has not happened. If we were now to seek to turn back the
 
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clock and reintroduce the Shops Act 1950, I would bet Labour Members that they would receive petitions by the hundred saying "Leave our Sunday alone" and "Hands off Sunday." The amendment to the Sunday trading law has generally worked well—it has satisfied public demand—and that is all I seek to do with the new clause and the amendment.

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