Retail Store Closure: Boxing Day

Debate between Andrea Jenkyns and Helen Jones

Monday 12th December 2016 Westminster Hall

[Helen Jones]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very reasonable point. My view is that, if people are going to shop online rather than go to the shops, they are going to do that anyway. For instance, it was put to me that many people receive vouchers for Christmas, particularly children, and that they enjoy spending them. Yes, they do, and I suspect they would enjoy spending them just as much on 27 December.

We need to find a balance. If my right to shop is being exercised at the expense of some of the poorest-paid people in our community, their time with their family should take precedence. It is a question of what kind of society we want. Do we want a society in which people are able to spend time with their family—their children or parents—or maybe even invite in an elderly neighbour who is on their own, or do we want a society that is a free-for-all, and in which the weakest go to the wall?

[Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Helen Jones]

No I will not, because the hon. Lady has just walked in; she was not here from the beginning of the debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrea Jenkyns]

Sorry, not at the moment; I will come back to you. So many times when I was working on those Boxing days, new year’s days and so on, colleagues who had the day off would come in and see us because they were out shopping with their families. You are talking about giving people time off, but I saw that a lot of my colleagues were out shopping anyway. Times have changed.

The retail sector has Christmas day and Easter Sunday off, but it is not just about the Christian side of things. We live in a multicultural society, so this is not about any particular religion, really. I would like to put forward the other view, which is that of retailers. Retail is in my blood, as I said. High street retailers have found things so hard over the last decade, because of the internet. I have seen so many businesses close down. I used to work for Comet. It had been around for more than 100 years. Look at what happened to Comet; look at what happened to Woolworths. I also used to work for Allsports. All of those went bust after decades.

Boxing day was the busiest day of the whole year for us in retail. I remember that in one Comet store, we took more than £100,000 in one day. Normally, on the busiest Saturday, we would be lucky if we took £15,000, so to me, we are biting the hand that feeds us. Retail is struggling. The high street is dwindling; the internet is killing the high street. More and more people are shopping online, and that is just an inevitable aspect of the internet; I am not saying anything against it. However, if Boxing day is the busiest day of the year and we stop the ability to trade on that day, what will happen to the job security of these low-paid workers?

[Helen Jones]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Andrea Jenkyns]

I will give way to you even though you did not to me.

[Helen Jones]

That is because the hon. Lady did not come in for the beginning of the speech. It is rude for someone to try to intervene when they were not here for the beginning of the speech. The hon. Lady is wrong: Boxing day is not the busiest day of the year overall. It may well have been where she worked, but it simply is not—

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrea Jenkyns]

In retail, it is.

[Helen Jones]

That is not the case. Figures from the Library show that, overall, Boxing day sales are not as high as those for the peak day in December or the peak day in November.

[Andrea Jenkyns]

With respect, in all the years that I worked in retail—you have not worked in retail like I have—it was the busiest day.

BMA (Contract Negotiations)

Debate between Andrea Jenkyns and Helen Jones

Monday 21st March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Helen Jones]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Andrea Jenkyns]

I am sorry—I am carrying on. I am talking about the millions who voted for a proper seven-day NHS in the general election. The seven-day NHS is not some distant pipe dream. Several trusts across the UK, including Northumbria’s, have established consultant-led care across seven days. The only reason the rest of the country cannot enjoy the benefits of that is the BMA’s political posturing. The Labour party’s suggestion that the Government have not negotiated well is difficult to take, when it was the party that signed off on the consultant contract in 2003 that gave an opt-out on weekend work, and gave GPs the ability to opt-out of out-of-hours care in 2004.

[Helen Jones]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Andrea Jenkyns]

I am going to finish. Can a policeman say that he does not want to cover a Friday night? Can a firefighter turn down a shift because it is a Sunday morning? No.

Sugary Drinks Tax

Debate between Andrea Jenkyns and Helen Jones

Monday 30th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Helen Jones]

The public health responsibility deal has had a fair trial over the past five years. The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee said of it that

“the current Public Health Responsibility Deal pledge on obesity is not a proportionate response to the scale of the problem.”

The reason for that, as the British Medical Association has pointed out, is that the deal does not set targets for individual food and drink products, or a timescale in which changes have to be made. That is why I have come to believe that there is a great deal of merit in what the petitioners are asking for, as one method among a whole lot of ways to tackle the problem.

A tax on sugary drinks would probably have to be at the level of 10% to 20% to make a change in behaviour, apparently—Public Health England suggests that range. There is evidence from Mexico and France that at that level, people’s behaviour starts to change and they start to choose sugar-free alternatives. However, that has to be part of a whole-Government effort to reduce obesity, which has to begin in schools.

Much work has been done on improving school meals, setting better nutritional standards for them and removing vending machines from schools. The problem is that those things do not apply to academies and free schools, and as more schools become academies we are putting more children at risk of poor nutrition. We should not tolerate that. It is good that food and nutritional education is compulsory at key stage 3, but we need to look at how that operates. Much more investment in equipment is needed. Schools need to be outward-facing and need to encourage local people to visit them to talk to children about food and how it is grown. The best schools do that, but often the curriculum is not appropriate for all children.

In my entire school career I did a term and a half of cookery, because it was considered that those who were academically inclined did not need to learn how to cook. The only thing I can remember being taught is how to make rock buns, something that I have not indulged in before or since. Another example is that my son specialised in Indian cooking. It was supposed to be brought home for the evening meal, but anyone who suggests that has never met a teenage boy. That was interesting, but expensive. What most of us need to know when we first set out in the world is how to eat healthily on a restricted budget. That is the sort of thing that we need to look at with our children.

In fact, all public institutions should be promoting healthy eating. Dare I suggest that we start with some of the vending machines in this place, so that I do not walk down the corridors thinking, “Get thee behind me, Satan”, every time I pass machines full of chocolate and fizzy drinks? That needs to be done in hospitals as well—there have been a number of articles about that recently.

I challenge people to walk into the foyer of many hospitals. There are machines selling chocolate and fizzy drinks, and the outlets often sell cake and biscuits quite cheaply but overcharge for a piece of fruit. If someone wanders in to buy a paper, they will be offered a big, discounted chocolate bar at the till. That makes it much harder for people to resist temptation. Of course, that is difficult to do, but the message that hospitals are giving their patients, staff and visitors is, “Don’t do as we say; do as we do.” The Government urgently need to negotiate with trusts and with NHS England to see how the issue can be remedied. It is nonsense to take an income from those sorts of outlets in one part of the hospital and then to deal with the effects of poor diet in another.

[Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that it is also down to personal responsibility and choice, and that it should not be down to the state to tell people how to live their lives? Childhood obesity is more prevalent in deprived areas, so a sugary drinks tax will hit the poorest. Surely education, better labelling and personal responsibility are key.

[Helen Jones]

If we were dealing with a level playing field, the hon. Lady might be right, but we are not. We are dealing with goods that are heavily marketed, especially to children. I am sure she cannot really be arguing that it is great for hospitals to profit from unhealthy food and then for the other end of the hospital to deal with the consequences of that.