Sunday Trading (London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games) Bill [HL]
(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)
Read Full debate13:44 - Division on Amendment 1 - Ayes: 197 / Noes: 110 - Amendment 1 agreed.
00:00 - Division on Amendment 1E - Ayes: 110 / Noes: 187 - Amendment 1E disagreed.
14:21 - Division on Amendment 1G - Ayes: 100 / Noes: 186 - Amendment 1G disagreed.
Lord Sassoon
“Opting out of Sunday work
(1) Where a shop worker gives an opting-out notice in the pre-Games period that relates to work at an exempted large shop, section 41(3) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 has effect as if the notice period in relation to the shop worker were the period which—
(a) begins with the day on which the notice is given, and(b) ends two months after that day, or with Saturday 21 July 2012 (if that is later).(2) Section 42(2) of that Act accordingly has effect in relation to the shop worker as if the reference to three months were a reference to the notice period as it is modified by subsection (1).
(3) Where the opting-out notice includes an express statement to the effect that the shop worker objects to Sunday working only during the suspension period, the shop worker is to be treated for the purposes of that Act as having given an opting-in notice at the end of that period.
(4) The “pre-Games period” is the period which—
(a) begins with the day on which this Act is passed, and(b) ends with Monday 9 July 2012.(5) An “exempted large shop” is a shop to which paragraph 2(1) of Schedule 1 to the Sunday Trading Act 1994 would apply during the suspension period were it not for the disapplication made by section 1(1).
(6) In this section—
“opting-in notice”, “opting-out notice” and “shop worker” each have the same meaning as in the Employment Rights Act 1996, and
“suspension period” has the meaning given in section 1(3).”
The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Sassoon)
My Lords, we had a very good Second Reading debate two days ago, so I was not intending to preface my remarks with an extended speech about the purposes of the Bill. However, I remind the Committee that the Bill is a time-limited and temporary measure to allow flexibility in trading hours on the eight Sundays that bracket and include the Olympic and Paralympic Games. This is a unique occasion for this country. We want to demonstrate that we are truly open, flexible and accommodating of all the athletes and visitors who will be in the country for the Games, and indeed that for all the millions of UK citizens who take advantage of the Games, watching on big screens and taking part in the other events around the country, we make the experience as good as it possibly can be. In achieving that, there may indeed be opportunities for economic benefit and for some people to earn extra money at a time when the economic conditions are not great. Therefore, this is a temporary Bill that is important to the overall Olympics and Paralympics experience.
As I said on a number of occasions at Second Reading, not only is it temporary but it has an explicit sunset clause. If at any stage the Government were to come forward with a further measure on Sunday trading, which is not planned, then of course that would involve the full consultation, impact assessments and all the other things that permanent measures have.
With that brief preface, I shall talk to Amendment 1. This amendment will insert a new clause into the Bill to deal with concerns that shop workers who want to opt out of Sunday shop-working in time for the start of the suspension period, by exercising their opt-out right under Part 4 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, may have to have given their opting-out notice prior to the Bill receiving Royal Assent. This is because the usual period for such opting-out notices is three months, and there will be a bit less than three months between Royal Assent in early May and the start of the suspension period on 22 July.
The first question that might arise is: why is this being brought forward as an amendment rather than having been in the Bill in the first place? The reason is that we had initially believed that the amendment was not necessary, as we would expect shop workers who do not wish to work on a Sunday at all for religious reasons to have either already exercised their right to opt out or to have come to an arrangement with their employer. Furthermore, many employers require only a one-month notice period, whether in the terms of their employment contracts or in the good practices that they adopt. At Second Reading I gave a number of examples of that from major retail groups. In fact—this is an important point for the Committee to understand—a one-month period is the default under the Employment Rights Act 1996 if an employer has not informed employees of their right to opt out of Sunday working. Therefore, the back-stop of a one-month opting-out period is there in the Act.
Nevertheless, initially we had constructive discussions with the Opposition about the Bill. We would not have brought it forward under the fast-track procedure if we had not had indications and discussions with the Opposition on this issue. The amendment was tabled following a request from the Opposition, which we quite understood, to make it clear what the protections were and to put in another layer of protections. I am disappointed that, notwithstanding the opposition Front Bench making it clear at Second Reading that the Opposition would not oppose the Bill, further points have now come up which we will be debating this afternoon.
In addition to the government amendment, as I already committed to the House at Second Reading in response to other good points that were raised by the Opposition, the business department will be putting out on its website full guidance notes if and when the Bill gets Royal Assent so that employers and employees will understand the full ramifications. This is not an easy area of law, so it was a helpful suggestion which we are committed to following up. In response to their concerns and those expressed by the Federation of Small Businesses, and indirectly by the Association of Convenience Stores, I have also committed that if the Government were to bring forward further measures on flexibility of trading hours on Sundays for large shops, the impact of this temporary measure would be taken into that assessment.
Turning to the amendment, it is important to remember that shop workers already enjoy strong employment protections around Sunday working. Their rights specifically in relation to Sunday working are unique and are not shared by almost all other sectors of the working population who may be required to work on Sundays. To take one example that is close to the retail industry, workers in the catering industry are not protected and, of course, may well be asked to work extended hours around the Olympics, as they can be at other times. The rights in relation to Sunday working were put in place to give protection to those shop workers who did not wish to work on a Sunday as a matter of principle—for example, for religious reasons. As I have said, shop workers who do not wish to work on a Sunday at all for religious reasons may well have already either exercised their right to opt out or would have come to an arrangement with their employer. If their employer has not already brought to their attention the terms of the Act on their right to opt out, then indeed they have a fall-back period of one month.
However, the Government have listened to the concerns and share the concern that some shop workers may wish to exercise their right to opt out of Sunday working during the suspension period, given the possibility of having to work longer or different hours, and will not have enough time after Royal Assent to give their employer the usual three months’ notice in time for the start of the suspension period. For many workers in large retail groups, the notice period is only one month, and these employees will be totally unaffected by the amendment. We have met the trade unions, businesses and other interested parties to ensure that we are protecting the rights of shop workers to opt out of Sunday working in the least burdensome way possible, both for employees and employers.
Subsection (1) of the proposed new clause has the effect of temporarily shortening the usual three-month notice period that applies in respect of opting-out notices given by shop workers to their employers. An opting-out notice is a written notice whereby the employee indicates to his or her employer that he or she objects to Sunday working. The effect of serving a notice is that following the notice period the employee can refuse to do shop work on Sundays and will be legally protected in that regard. It would be unfair dismissal to dismiss an opted-out shop worker because of their refusal.
Lord Addington
It might have been long but it was appropriate—the right thing done at the wrong time. What I would like him briefly to clarify again is what the Government will do to make sure that everybody is aware of this change. I do not think that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Davies, will be necessary if we get greater assurance that the Government intend to place a duty on employers to make sure that their workers know what is coming.
There are other issues to do with Sunday trading. If we had the Olympics every six or seven cycles, I am sure that we would have rather more of a point to make. The fact of the matter is, we do not. Most people in this Chamber will not see the Olympics in this country again in their lifetime—virtually all of us, I suspect. It is a special event and a special occasion. If the Minister can give us some assurance that, in the context of these new rights for this special occasion, a real effort will be made to make sure that nobody finds themselves in the situation of thinking, “I did not think I had to do that but I am doing it,” then I think that many of the objections here will be removed.
Lord Sassoon
This is a very direct and important point. I gave confirmation on Second Reading but let me do it again. Not only do I have my noble friend Lady Wilcox from the department here but I am sure that the walls have ears and the department will hear the message loud and clear. It has committed to putting out clear guidance, if and when the Bill gets Royal Assent, so that both employers and employees understand exactly the position under the Bill. That guidance will go beyond narrow legalistic explanations to try and be helpful about what should be done and how and about the timescales. I will make sure that my honourable friend the business Minister, who will be taking this Bill through another place if it passes your Lordships’ House, gets these messages loud and clear. I know that he is going to continue to discuss these issues with business and employee groups. I hope that that helps my noble friend.
Lord Myners
Those data were not included—I shall give way to the Minister if he wishes to correct me—in the Bill’s economic impact assessment, at attachment C, when I obtained the documents from the Printed Paper Office yesterday morning.
Lord Sassoon
I do not like to intervene often but as the noble Lord, Lord Myners—who I know likes occasionally to intervene on me, quite properly, while I am at the Dispatch Box—has invited me to do so, it might help if I say that a formal impact assessment under the accepted procedures is not required in this case because this is a temporary measure. Such an assessment is not required precisely because, among other things, it is often difficult with a temporary measure to make an assessment that is up to the very high standards imposed on full impact assessments.
I thought that it would help the House if there were an assessment that, although not a formal impact assessment, would give a great deal of relevant and, I hope, helpful information—and my noble friend has just quoted from it. I make no apologies that boxes which would have been filled in for a formal impact assessment were not filled in in this case, as that would give a spurious impression of accuracy. We did not have to give the House anything in this form but we thought that it would help the debate to provide such information as is available. My noble friend has given some of that information but it also includes statistics from USDAW and others and I believe that it presents a balanced picture. The noble Lord, Lord Myners, should understand that this was never intended to give, nor should it give, a spurious, false picture. It is not up to the standards that would be required for Bills that have permanent effect.
Lord Myners
I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, for her intervention, and to the Minister for correcting the noble Baroness by saying that there was no impact assessment and that the data from which the noble Baroness quotes do not constitute an impact statement. The numbers quoted by the noble Baroness, incidentally, are probably less than a week-end’s takings at Westfield and take no account of displacement—that is to say, the spending which would have taken place in any case but is now being brought into these Sunday trading permitted-hours figures or displaced from smaller stores to larger ones.
I should like to talk about treating people fairly, because that seems to be the issue on which the House wishes to focus in Committee.
Lord Sassoon
It might be helpful to the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, who went through a useful list of restrictions on Sunday trading in other countries, to refer to the restrictions in Germany, which I did not hear him mention. That country, which I think he will find on the list that he read out has very restricted weekend shopping hours, as we discussed at Second Reading, opened up that restrictive regime for the 2006 World Cup and it has now reverted to what it was before. That is a good, current European example of a very restrictive regime opened up for a major sporting event and then reverting to what it was before. That will give the noble Lord comfort that what we seek to do here is well precedented.
Lord Graham of Edmonton
I may help the Minister by quoting from a document given to me by the Library called The Economic Costs and Benefits of Easing Sunday Shopping Restrictions on Large Stores in England and Wales, a report for the Department of Trade and Industry in May 2006. On Germany, it says that shops are closed,
“except convenience and travel goods at railway stations and airports. Local authorities may grant permission for retailers to open on Sundays (maximum 4 per year)”.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, that makes the point that Germany had a much more restrictive regime than the UK, and that country freed it up much more significantly compared with the normal regime for the 2006 World Cup to give everyone the sort of experience that we want for the Olympics here. Then it reverted to what it was before. I am grateful to the noble Lord for bringing up that point.
Lord Bates
In the debate at Second Reading views were expressed on the broader issue of Sunday trading. The position that I stated in that debate was that I did not think that the economic case was at all convincing and that it did not manage to clear the retail growth review from the Treasury or clear the recent red tape review. A number of respondents did not say that this was something that they wanted to go ahead. The noble Lord, Lord Myners, who has very significant experience in this whole area, looked at the case and said that it was at least questionable, certainly ordinarily. I agree that we are talking about exceptional times. Normally the restriction on larger stores is not just a restriction on them but is to protect the smaller stores.
The noble Lord, Lord Myners, referred to Justin King from Sainsbury’s serving on LOCOG and asked whether the position was different given that Mayor Boris Johnson had put him forward. Like others on this side of the House, I am spending a fair bit of time campaigning for Boris Johnson at the moment. He has made a great priority of strengthening the high streets and supporting small business. That is essentially what this measure is about.
That point made, I turn to the amendment, which I welcome. Let us be clear what we are talking about on the date, which as it stood in the Bill was at 24 April. We were effectively going to say that the minimum notice period that had to be given under the Bill was that, two days ago, before this legislation had been passed, somebody would have had to give notice to their employer that they did not want to work on 22 July. On that point it is obvious and the Minister, who is wise in these things, has brought forward this amendment, which is very simple in its present form. I do not buy in any sense the idea that Amendment 1E, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, simplifies the thing. If anything, it makes it more complicated because you almost go back to the potential for three months, with a two-month notice period then a one-month response period to come back in. You are potentially going back into this very difficult situation.
It is also worth noting a little more about which Sundays we are talking about, because we know where this argument is coming from. It is from the big stores, particularly the London-based stores and development companies that sponsored the research pointing to the benefit, to which my noble friend Lady Browning referred. In fairness, I did not mean that as a jibe. We are in a recession and we want to make money. When we have people actually coming here, we want jobs so they absolutely ought to try to make the case. I am simply pointing to the fact that there is an element of that. The impact assessment refers to the fact that there will be 450,000 visitors, but they are not going to stay for the whole period. They will predominantly be clustered around the summer Olympics rather than the Paralympics. I would wish it to be the other way round, because the Paralympics espouse to me more of what the Olympic spirit is all about, but the reality is that most of the attention will come from 27 July, when the opening ceremony takes place. Therefore, the first Sunday on which there will be the desire to celebrate sporting achievements by visiting shops for more hours, for which we accept the case because the cake will be larger, will be 29 July and not 22 July. Moreover, the Games will be going on until 12 August, which happens to be a Sunday in my diary, while on Sunday 19 August, for which liberalisation is being made, nothing will be taking place—other than a lot of people working very hard to get the site ready for the Paralympic Games to start. However, those Games do not start on 26 August; they actually start on 29 August. To add insult to injury, the dates finish on the closing date of the Paralympics themselves, 9 September. That part is absolutely right.
This is a simple adjustment. The opposition amendment makes this not simpler but more complex. Most of the visitors and the economic activity will be early on, which again is the reason for giving maximum notice to people. If they have problems, we need to make sure that that happens as quickly as possible and therefore the adjustment to two months, as proposed in my noble friend’s amendment, would seem sensible in this case.
Lord Elton
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Myners, greatly underestimates my noble friend Lord Sassoon’s ability if he thinks that my noble friend’s excellent speech—I agree about that—at Second Reading is anything like the high point of his parliamentary career, as the noble Lord said it would be. My noble friend has a long way to go. Now he is looking at me as if he is wondering what is coming next, which is quite right.
I simply want assurance on what I think are called Pepper v Hart terms—in other words, for the guidance of people trying to work out what this law is meant to mean when they come to examine it in court. I am concerned rather along the lines that the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, put forward. I am an inveterate opponent of Sunday opening in principle, but the House has given a Second Reading to the Bill. I accept that so what we are discussing are the means of exempting on grounds of conscience those who do not wish to be ruled by it—and of course I am in favour of that. However, throughout the Second Reading debate and in conversations thereafter, everybody has been seeking reassurance that this is not to be used as a precedent. The phrase actually used was “stalking horse”; I take it that that means a precedent. When the noble Lord, Lord Graham, made that point forcefully he got a reply from my noble friend with some information in it, but not an avowal again that this is not to be used as a precedent or that that is not the Government’s intention. All I ask is that my noble friend reiterates that assurance, so that it will be on the record in this debate as well as at Second Reading.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I am happy to reiterate for my noble friend Lord Elton the assurances on that point which I gave at Second Reading.
The debate was going so well that I had thought that there might be more points. It has been a good debate around this subject, but perhaps I might make some remarks about Amendment 1F, which the Government do not see merit in. That amendment, as we have heard, seeks to require employers to give two months’ written notice to any shop worker who works only in a large shop affected by the Bill, and who has not already given an opting-out notice that they wish to work on a Sunday during the suspension period, requesting them to do so. I may have said Amendment 1F; I meant Amendment 1E. I apologise to the Committee. My notes say Amendment 1A, but I think that was probably the Government’s amendment. For the avoidance of doubt, I am objecting to Amendment 1E, while the Government’s amendment is the one in which I hope the Committee will see merit.
Amendment 1E gives the shop worker an opportunity to give a written objection to the request within one month. If done, this has the effect of making the employment contract unenforceable to the extent that it requires the shop worker to do shop work on Sunday during the suspension period—in other words, it gives a temporary opt-out. This amendment is unnecessary, as I will come on to explain, but in introducing it I think that the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, said on three occasions that it was a clear amendment. I suggest that it is not clear and, regrettably, certainly not workable. Let me explain its unworkability, because it is quite important and comes to some of the points that noble Lords have made in the debate.
First, if a large retailer was concerned about the additional burden that this amendment, if passed, would place on them and went to seek legal advice, it is my belief that any competent employment lawyer could pick this provision apart in minutes. The amendment’s main fault is that it contains no effective sanction against non-service of the proposed notice from the employer. If the employer does not serve this notice, the effect is that the shop worker never acquires the right to opt out of Sunday working during the suspension period as envisaged by subsection (3) of this proposed new clause. As there is no sanction in place for non-service of the notice, the advice from an employment lawyer would likely be to ignore this provision in the Act, as it would then be.
In addition, I suggest that the amendment would have some strange and undesirable effects. First and foremost, it could constitute a huge burden upon employers, particularly large ones with many staff. Doing this in respect of every employee who might be asked to work by a large retailer would be a substantial burden, added to which there would be staff hours involved in producing the notices and monitoring the responses. Employers might also need more than one notice per employee, as the requirement relates to each individual Sunday. I accept that employers could roll them up into one notice, but that is not what the amendment says. If circumstances changed—for example, if a retailer did not get enough staff for a particular Sunday—they might need to serve some more notices, assuming that they had the time to do so. And so on.
The provision does not give employers much time to plan. They might not know until one month after the date of their notice that the employee was not going to exercise their right. It would also have the effect that even those employees currently contracted to work only on Sundays would find themselves receiving a notice from their employer that they were requested to work on one Sunday or more during the suspension period. While I understand that the underlying concern here is a perfectly reasonable one, the effects of the amendment begin to get into Alice in Wonderland territory if people contracted to work only on Sundays were required to get notices from their employer. They would then have an opportunity to object to this within one month, even though they were contracted to work only on Sundays anyway.
Similarly, a notice would have to be given to those shop workers for whom the employer does not propose to make any changes to their usual or contracted hours for the Sundays concerned. The amendment would even have the rather bizarre effect that a large shop currently subject to the restrictions, even if it did not intend to change its opening hours during the suspension period, would still have to serve this notice on its shop workers to be able to be staffed for its current opening hours. This plainly means that that employer would face a burden in just opening at all, even if it did not seek to change its current opening hours. That would be totally contrary to the intention of the Bill.
The amendment is unworkable and in the view of the Government, as I said, it is also unnecessary. We should not lose sight of the fact that if a shop worker does not want to work on Sundays, whether for religious reasons or any other reasons, they will already have been able to exercise their right to opt out or will be automatically protected because their contract cannot require them to work on Sundays, as my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern has already pointed out.
At this point it is right to think a bit about the views of employees. This important issue has been raised by the noble Lords, Lord Judd and Lord Davies of Coity, and the noble Baroness, Lady Gibson of Market Rasen. These are important points, but we must remember that there may be many employees who would like the opportunity of a few extra hours as they could make some considerable extra money if they wanted to work on all eight Sundays. In these times, we should not be dismissive of that and just look in dramatic terms at the other side of the argument.
Yes, there was an USDAW poll. I have seen its document that talks about polling 10,000 of its members. I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Gibson, talked about 20,000 members but the document that all Peers received talked about 10,000. At one point the poll was described as independent but I am not sure that that is right, as USDAW says that it did it itself, and it was taken from only 10,000 or perhaps 20,000 out of its 414,000 members. It would be good if we had some independent polls that we could debate but I do not think that we do. My noble friend Lady Trumpington carried out more of an in-depth qualitative survey that came to a rather different view; she told us that the people she had talked to during her research were perfectly relaxed about this. All I can say is that the evidence we have on this is incomplete at best, and we have to regard it in that way.
There may be a number of different effects on families. The noble Baroness, Lady Gibson, referred to it being harder to arrange childcare on weekends, but interestingly the submission from Working Families, a group that represents working families, to what was then the Department of Trade and Industry on its informal consultation on Sunday trading in 2006, said that it was beneficial for many parents to work on Sunday as childcare is easier to arrange than on other days of the week. Although this is a second-order effect of the Bill, it is also right to recognise, because all these concerns are being raised, that it is a perfectly reasonable concern but the Working Families submission made the point that the Bill could give families some greater flexibility over the eight-week period. I do not dismiss these concerns but we should look at them in a balanced way.
We should also remember that in many cases the main national retailers are already in discussion with their staff on this issue. They are not waiting; they have to plan ahead. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Myners, said at one point that no major retailers support this. He indicates that he did not—maybe I misheard him—but he certainly quoted the example of one major retailer. To take a major retailer that has made a statement on this, Morrisons says that it is excited, like its customers, that the Olympics are almost upon it and welcome the Government’s decision to relax the Sunday trading laws during the Games. We know that other retailers are already planning ahead because there will be very little time between the Bill receiving Royal Assent and the start of the suspension period. That is why the government amendment proposes a simple reduction in the opting-out notice period from three months to as little as two months.
In seeking to protect the rights of shop workers, as I have tried to explain, the Opposition have come up with a bureaucratic nightmare for employers, the vast majority of which want to co-operate with their employees to reach mutually acceptable agreements regarding working arrangements, and a potentially confusing measure for employees who would find themselves served with one or more notices stating that they might be required to work on a particular Sunday but not necessarily specifying the hours that they were required to work, nor indeed explaining why the notice was being given out. My noble friend Lord Bates referred to the complexity of all this and I can only underline that.
The amendment could have the no doubt unintended consequence that employers served this notice on all their employees to ensure that they had sufficient staff to cover not only the extra opening hours, if they decided to take advantage of the flexibility under the Bill, but also their current opening hours. Indeed, one of the major supermarket groups has estimated that it would have to serve 180,000 such notices to comply with this amendment, so the amendment would be costly and unnecessary for employers if they even decided to comply with this provision.
I shall say a word or two about the economic impact, about which things have been said. The main purpose of the Bill, as I explained at Second Reading and as my noble and learned friend recognises that I have explained, is to enhance the Olympic experience for all concerned. But of course another purpose of the Bill is to make sure that we do this in a way that is capable of contributing to an economic boost, not an economic cost, to the country. Clearly, individual retailers will make up their minds in respect of this, but if retailers find that they need to serve hundreds of thousands of these notices, any gains that the Bill would otherwise have are likely to be wiped out in whole or in very considerable part by compliance with that amendment. I hear what my noble friend Lord Bates and the noble Lord, Lord Myners, say about the economic impact. The one thing that we absolutely do not want to do is to put in place something that imposes an economic cost.
We know that some large retailers already operate a one-month opting-out notice. I cannot imagine why on earth these stores in particular should have to serve an additional notice to their staff when the notice period that they already apply is more generous than the three-month one, when their staff will have adequate time to opt out before the suspension period begins. Again, the amendment would get us into perverse territory. We know already that some employers are talking to their staff via their store management teams. We are told that another has started a staff availability survey that specifically asks staff whether or not they would like to volunteer to work additional time on Sundays during the suspension. This is a sensitive process that the people who we have talked to appear to be putting in place. We understand that one retailer has already made it clear to its staff that no one will be forced to work additional hours during the suspension period, and any request from management to change current Sunday working times will be done on a purely voluntary basis. So far, this store has had more than enough volunteers to work the additional time on Sundays during the suspension period. It will have no trouble resourcing its stores during the suspension. I would very much like to put names to these stores, but noble Lords will understand that, because they are in the middle of these discussions with their staff and the commercial arrangements around what they decide in terms of opening, they would rather their names were not made public in this debate.
In summary, for all of these reasons, the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, is unnecessary. As I have explained, it is also unworkable. I appreciate that there have been constraints on time that may have contributed to it being less well thought out than might otherwise have been the case. It would be very burdensome for business and confusing for the shop workers that it is designed to protect. I ask the Committee to vote, if invited to do so, against the noble Lord’s amendment, but to support the government amendment, which gives proportionate protection in the context of this Bill.
Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, I apologise to the Committee that this is a manuscript amendment but the intention behind it is, as I indicated on Second Reading, that although we favour the extension of Sunday opening during the Olympic period, some limits should be put upon the opening hours of shops. The reason for submitting the manuscript amendment is that I discovered to my horror that the conclusion of the Olympic Games at the closing ceremony was not at 10 pm but at 10.30 pm. Given that the importance of the closing ceremony was germane to our case, I have submitted a manuscript amendment that extends opening hours to 11 pm.
We are of course in favour of the extension of opening hours, but there should be some limits upon the length of time that large stores and others can open during that period. The amendment goes some way towards recognising that Sunday is Sunday and is different from the rest of the week, and we are paying due regard to what is after all a widespread position held in the country on that matter. Our proposal to limit opening hours offers some protection to the workers. We have had a discussion on giving notice to people in the workforce of the intention to work on Sunday and the time in which they can reply. However, some constraint on hours offers at least an element of protection against possibly excessive demands made upon workers during the Games period.
The amendment also gives some recognition to the concern about this legislation that we discussed at Second Reading but was not germane to, or expressed during, our debate on the previous amendments—the concern of convenience stores and small shops that they will be adversely affected by the Sunday opening hours of large stores. The Minister recognises the difficulties that we all face, but the background against which the stores have been working is that the impact assessment provided by the Government is a fairly limited document. What is more, we received it after Second Reading and it is therefore difficult to make an assessment of its value. Moreover, if we are in that position, so are interests outside.
It is clear that convenience stores feel that they may well suffer during the period of extended Sunday opening during the Olympic Games because of the superior competitive power of the large stores. At least this limitation on the hours proposed in the amendment recognises that.
The noble Lord, Lord Bates, said today that shops will open only when they think that there is market potential. They will open when they will be profitable. This will operate for a limited period and it will be extremely difficult for people to make such assessments. Therefore, we think that, at the very least, the legislation should indicate for what time shops should be open. I recognise the limitations that not opening before 10 am, in particular, represents, but it goes some way towards the recognition of Sunday being a less busy and challenging day than the rest of the week in the wider community.
Finally, I hope that the Minister will be prepared to accept the amendment. That might be a forlorn hope, but all along he has been keen to emphasise that this is emergency legislation to deal with a limited, restricted period and that it is no precursor to widening Sunday trading in future; it is solely related to the Olympic Games. If he gives fair wind to the amendment, that would indicate that we are concerned about the implications of this change for the wider community. While realising all the potential benefits of Britain being open during the Olympic Games, there should also be some recognition that on Sundays, special hours should obtain. I beg to move.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I will not disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham. The Government do not see favour in the amendment. As he explained, its effect would be to restrict the Sunday opening hours of large shops deregulated by the Bill so that they can open during the suspension period only between the hours of 10 am and, now, 11 pm, the intention being to prevent large shops from being able to open any earlier on Sundays than they can now or until too late in the evening. I wish that, along with all the other things that we discussed with the Opposition, we had been able to discuss this before, because we might then have been able to point out one or two of the difficulties with the proposal.
The starting point is that the Government have been clear from the beginning that the Bill is about flexibility. It is not about the Government imposing opening and closing times on large stores during the suspension period; it is about allowing shops to make their own decisions based on what is best for themselves, their staff and their customers. I do not think that it is right for your Lordships’ House to second-guess any of that. It is not that all large stores will suddenly open for 24 hours a day during the Olympic period; that would be absurd. We have discussed opening times with the large retailers and it is clear that there will be a variety of opening and closing times within individual groups. Some will deal with it on a regional, geographic basis. Within the whole group, some will stay open late, some will open earlier, and some will not change their opening times at all. The important thing is that the Government want that to be a decision for them.
The amendment is unnecessary. I do not want to overlabour the point, but as we have seen from the scrabbling around by the party opposite, they realise that putting a 10 pm stop would be before the closing ceremony had finished. Well, putting an 11 o’clock closing time after an event where 80,000 people have to get out of a stadium, adding an extra half-hour, is absurd if the change to the amendment is intended to reflect what is really going on at the events.
Even to reflect the situation at the event that the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, identified, half an hour for 80,000 people to get to a large shop near the stadium is plainly not doable. There are events that will finish as late as midnight on a Sunday. The beach volleyball finishes at 10 to midnight on 29 July. What about all those events that start before 10 am? Why should not we allow shops, if they want to, to service all those people who will be going into events? Again, I could give a very long list, but if we just take 29 July, there is an 8.30 start for the badminton, 8.30 for the hockey, 9 am for the basketball, shooting and archery, and so on.
The amendment does not work in relation to the narrow Olympic events themselves. It does not reflect the fact that retailers are already taking individual decisions to open early, late or make no change at all. As with the other opposition amendment, I note that it does not impose any sanction or penalty for breach of the 10 am to 11 pm restriction, so large shops may well ignore it. It would be a duty with no sanction, which I suggest is simply bad law. That contrasts with large shops which breach the current restrictions, which can be fined up to £50,000, which is clearly a significant punishment in relation to the gain. It does not work, it is unnecessary and I ask the noble Lord to consider withdrawing his amendment.
Lord Myners
I intervene briefly. Both my points relate to the earlier intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Elton. First, the noble Lord sought an assurance that this was not a stalking horse.
Lord Myners
As the Minister correctly notes, the noble Lord is not in his place. This is not a stalking horse or a Trojan horse; this is strictly an emergency piece of legislation. However, one has to note that the central thrust of the Minister's response about customers and shops having freedom of choice would be exactly the same argument that would be brought forward were the Government to be proposing a much broader exemption to restrictions on Sunday trading. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, was right to seek the assurances that he did.
I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Elton, on his prescience. I observed that the Minister’s contribution to the Second Reading of the Sunday Trading (London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games) Bill was the high point of his parliamentary career. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, said that that would not be the case but I have to confess that, even in talking to this amendment, the Minister has in Olympic terms established another personal best.
Lord Sassoon
Lord Sassoon
“(1A) Subsection (1B) applies in a case within section (Opting out of Sunday work) where—
(a) the opting-out notice was given less than three months before the end of the suspension period, and (b) section 42(2) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (which sets out the case in which the notice period is to be one month beginning with the day on which the notice was given) does not apply.(1B) For the purposes of section 41(3) of that Act, the notice period (which, as a result of the repeal made by subsection (1), reverts to being the period of three months beginning with the day on which the notice was given) is to be treated as ending immediately after that repeal.”
Lord Sassoon