Enterprise Bill [Lords]

Caroline Flint Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)]

Surveys of internet shoppers show that there is no relationship between internet shopping on a Sunday and the desire for extended hours in local stores. Is the fact that people are on the internet between midnight and 3 am an argument for shops to be open at that time? Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that is not the case?

[Mr Burrowes]

I agree.

--- Later in debate ---

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend has, in fact, made it clear why it is important for local authorities to be able to decide locally what is right for them. He should also acknowledge that it is often the larger high-street stores that are the draw for footfall in local areas. As he knows, I think that free car parking also plays a part, and I should like to see more of that.

As we all know, politics is not an exact science, and all but the most saintly of humans can sometimes contradict themselves, or be open to the charge of inconsistency. However, the contradictions that are inherent in the Labour-SNP opposition to our liberalisation proposals are so immense that I must draw attention to them.

As others have pointed out, there are no restrictions on Sunday trading in Scotland. First, SNP Members said—as one would expect—that they would support our proposals, and now they say that will not. Will the SNP Administration in Edinburgh be introducing the restrictions that currently apply in England, in order to be consistent? I should be interested to hear the answer to that question.

Do Labour Members—along with USDAW—plan to send letters to their constituents urging them to give up using the internet on Sundays, lest someone, somewhere, be exploited in a warehouse owned by Amazon or a similar company? I am tempted to ask the Opposition why they did not vote against this proposal in Committee, or even, in some cases, speak against it—neither the SNP nor Labour voted against it—and why they have not tabled an amendment themselves. Perhaps the wording of the amendment could have been something like “It has come to the attention of Labour and SNP that that some people shop on the internet on Sundays.” After all, Sunday is now the biggest internet shopping day of the week. It could have continued: “Labour and the SNP demand a law requiring people to switch off the internet on Sundays, in order to stamp out this disgraceful behaviour.”

Perhaps I should not give Opposition Members any ideas. How can anyone be opposed to the idea of walking into a shop on a Sunday to buy something—a book, for example, whether it is a little red one or not—but not opposed to the idea of buying that very same book, so long as it is done on the internet? Labour and the SNP—parties that are, effectively, in coalition today—are supporting Amazon’s profits at the expense of shops on our high streets. I am afraid that I struggle to understand the logic of that.

[Caroline Flint]

The Minister mentioned protection for shop workers earlier. I would welcome the strengthening of such protection. May I ask the Minister whether, if he loses the vote on Sunday opening tonight, he will retain the protection for shop workers that is in the Bill?

[Brandon Lewis]

We have made it clear from the beginning that this is a package. If Members vote for amendment 1, they will be voting against the improvement in workers’ rights.

--- Later in debate ---

Let us be clear—there is no other way to put it—that these proposals are anti-family. I urge Members to vote for amendment 1 and to vote down the proposals in the Bill, because they are wrong. They are bad for families and bad for small business. There is no economic case and the public do not want them. In fact, when presenting the proposals to the Bill Committee, the only support that the Minister could cite was from retailers in the west end and Knightsbridge. To put it plainly, that is not a sufficient basis on which to change regulations. The Government have no legitimate rationale or mandate for these changes, so I urge colleagues to vote for amendment 1 and against the proposals in the Bill.

[Caroline Flint]

It has been clear throughout the course of our debate that the Government have not made their case. On Second Reading, the Secretary of State spent two thirds of his speech talking about proposals for Sunday trading that were not even in the Bill, and today the Minister has presented us with proposals to change Sunday trading arrangements without giving us any information, so we are meant to take the Government’s promise on the never-never. This is bad law. Wherever Members stand on this issue, we should not be sending bad law through this House. We should reject the Government’s enticements to support them on something we have not actually seen, support amendment 1, and prevent this change to Sunday trading from happening.

[Clive Efford]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In response to a previous intervention, the Minister said that my local authority, Greenwich, had asked for this power to be passed to it. That was not correct. My local authority said that if the change is made, it should come to the local authority, not the Mayor of London or the Greater London Authority. How do we get the Government to put the record straight?