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Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab): As one who was only too happy to work on Christmas day, and for that matter on Boxing day and St. Stephen's day and every Sunday as well—in fact, that was the only day of the week on which I was prepared to work—may I suggest that that is not the point at all? What the right hon.
 
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Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) aims to bring about through what we all realise is a parliamentary device is one of the most illiberal, sectarian and divisive provisions that has featured on an amendment paper for many a long month.

Mr. Chope: I am amazed by what the hon. Gentleman says. I do not understand the riddles in which he speaks. I know that many preachers go into the pulpit and try to attract the congregation's attention by speaking in riddles, and the first part of his intervention came into that category. As for the second part, the new clause is the reverse of illiberal and sectarian. It recognises the reality established by the last census. We learn from the census that 26 per cent. of Leicester's population are Indian—the highest percentage in any UK local authority—and 36.1 per cent. are non-white. In Newham, 60.6 per cent. of the population are non-white: in other words, the majority of the population. In Brent, 54.7 per cent. are non-white.

Mr. Forth: Those figures might be very interesting—they might even be slightly instructive—but is not my hon. Friend illustrating my point: that what happens in a local authority may not have much relevance to the community within which the store to which the new clause refers is situated? Surely there is a material difference, even in the cases that my hon. Friend quotes, between the local authority at large and the community immediately surrounding a shop that may, under these terms, open on Christmas day.

Mr. Chope: My right hon. Friend's argument is directed more towards amendment No. 11 than new clause 1. In an area such as Newham or Leicester, it is quite likely that there would be a large shop whose owner wished to open on Christmas day, and all of whose employees were non-Christian. That is the point that I am making, particularly in relation to communities in which more than half the population are non-Christian.

Mr. Kevan Jones: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, if the new clause were adopted, in what is a Christian country, we would be discriminating against Christians? If a devout Christian who did not want to work on Christmas day, and who recognised the Christmas holiday, applied for a job in a store employing only non-Christians, there would be an incentive for the store owner not to employ that person because, under the new clause, if they were employed, the shop would not be allowed to open on Christmas day.

Mr. Chope: The hon. Gentleman makes that point on the supposition that a responsible store owner would seek to discriminate against a potential employee on the grounds of that person's religious beliefs. I do not think that that is the way in which responsible shop owners would behave.

Mr. Jones: Yes, but the fact of the matter is that, under new clause 1, if that person were the only Christian employed by that store, it would not be
 
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allowed to open. Is it right that, in a predominantly Christian country, we should introduce legislation that discriminates against Christians?

Mr. Chope: As of 1 November in any given year, there would be a test. If no Christians were employed at that time, the test would apply for the following Christmas day. If, in the period between then and the following November, the store recruited Christians—or, perhaps more likely, existing employees changed from another religion or from being non-believers and adopted the Christian religion—the situation would alter.

New clause 1 and amendment No. 11 are being discussed together because there are two mechanisms that would enable exemptions to be made to the rather authoritarian approach that the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) proposes. It is surprising that the practising Christian Members of the House, who are trying to preach tolerance and understanding through the new clause, are being strongly opposed by those who make it clear that they do not have Christian beliefs.

Chris Bryant: The hon. Gentleman should be careful to judge not, lest he be judged. He said that 60 per cent. of people in Newham were non-white, but the fact that someone is non-white does not mean that he or she is non-Christian. Indeed, one of the most active Christian communities in the United Kingdom is the Afro-Caribbean community, and I think that its members would take significant exception to the nonsense that the hon. Gentleman is preaching this morning.

Mr. Chope: I agree with the hon. Gentleman absolutely. I am certainly not equating being non-white with being non-Christian. If we look around the world today, we see that some of the worst atrocities being committed against Christians are against black and other non-white Christians. I accept that wholeheartedly. Unfortunately, the Library brief does not give details of the non-Christian population by community; all that I have are the details of the non-white population.

I do, however, have the overall figures for population by religion, which show that only 71.6 per cent. of the population of the United Kingdom said in the 2001 census that they were Christians. Only 2.7 per cent. said that they were Muslim, 1 per cent. Hindu, 0.6 per cent. Sikh, 0.5 per cent. Jewish and 0.3 per cent. Buddhist. It would be erroneous to lump the Muslim, Hindu and Sikh populations together and say that they are non-white. I am not seeking to do that at all.

The hon. Gentleman will be the first to recognise, however, as did the Bishop of Winchester, that there are communities in this country with a significant non-Christian population. The new clause would give them the right to go shopping in large shops on Christmas day, should they so wish. I should like to emphasise, in relation to the argument advanced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst on amendment No. 11, that this would not be compulsory. If someone presented a petition in which 1,000 people said that they would like a shop to open on Christmas day, and there were a counter-petition, the shop would not have to open. It would be for the shop owner to decide whether he wished to open his shop. If
 
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1,000 people wanted a shop to open, but 5,000 people argued against that, the shop owner would risk annoying or losing many potential customers whose views had been expressed in the counter-petition if he opened his shop.

Some of the arguments against amendment No. 11 have been based on the false understanding that it would introduce an element of compulsion. Would that it were possible that, if a community said that it wanted to keep its post office open and 1,000 people signed a petition to that effect, the post office would, ergo, be kept open. Sadly, that is not the case, and it would not be the case in relation to amendment No. 11. If 1,000 people said that they would like a shop to open on Christmas day, that would not be decisive in itself, but it would provide a trigger that would enable the owner to open—all other things being taken into account—should he or she so wish.

Mr. Forth: That is all very well, but let us suppose that 1,000 people at one end of a large local authority area petitioned that a store at the opposite end of the area should open on Christmas day. That would not inconvenience those people. They would have operated the mechanism under amendment No. 11, but only the people in the immediate vicinity of the store—who had not petitioned for it to open—would suffer. Is that not a possibility?

Mr. Chope: Obviously, anything is possible. I cannot dispute that that is a possibility, but my right hon. Friend should accept that common sense would apply. This would be an issue of local public demand. If there is local public concern about shops opening on Christmas day, that should be dealt with through the planning process. There is nothing to prevent a provision that a shop should not open on Christmas day from being included in the terms of its planning permission. That would be a better way of reflecting local opinion on such issues than rejecting amendment No. 11.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst raised the issue of reasonable verification of religion in his objection to the new clause and the amendment. The census figures make it clear that the 23 per cent. of people who do not adhere to any religion are a mixture of people who said that they were non-believers and people who said that they were not prepared to answer the question. My right hon. Friend is right to say that there is no compulsion in the census on a person to say whether they are Christian or not. In reality, I doubt whether that would be a difficult problem to overcome, because it should be apparent to anyone who runs or owns a shop whether his employees are keen for the shop to open. It would be quite easy, in the form of a secret ballot, to find out whether people are Christian. It would not be necessary for an individual to be identified as a Christian in a shop in which most employees are non-Christian. The situation could be dealt with by other means, and as long as it was dealt with sensitively there would be no need for the identity of the person in question to become known to either the shop owner or to other employees.

11 am

The only reason we are tabling the new clause and the amendment is the fact that this is essentially a restrictive
 
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Bill that seeks to impose greater restrictions than currently exist. Inevitably, if one wants to impose restrictions and to have exemptions to them, there will be some ambiguity and need for interpretation, and for common sense to be applied. If the Bill's promoter accepts the central argument of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire and I that the reality is that we do not live in a monocultural society—much as my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst might wish that we did—certainly so far as particular localities are concerned, that argument should be recognised and reflected in the Bill.

I hope that, on reflection, the Bill's promoter will say, "Although I do not agree with its detail, I accept the principle behind the new clause." If the Bill is granted a Third Reading, I hope an amendment will be tabled in the other place to reflect the points that have been made in this debate. Neither I nor my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire would be so arrogant as to suggest that the new clause is perfectly drafted and ideal, but the principle that we have been articulating is one that the promoter should take on board.

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