Sunday Trading (London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games) Bill [Lords]

Chris Ruane Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Ian Lavery]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend.

I am sure that not just my constituents but those of every other Member have expressed concern about the legislation that is being pushed through at this late stage. There are many reasons for their concern, all of them valid. First, why should ordinary people not have the same opportunity to sit and watch the fantastic Olympic games on a Sunday afternoon? The answer is “Because they are shop workers.” Those workers fear that pressure will be put on them to work on more Sundays and for longer hours during the games, and that the Bill will set a precedent for the introduction of weekday hours on Sundays which would not be reversed after the Olympics.

I have asked a number of questions today about the voluntary aspect of Sunday working. If, at a time when 22.2 people are after each jobcentre vacancy, someone who works in a shop in Wansbeck says to the manager, “I don’t want to work on Sundays”, the manager is unlikely to say, “That’s fine: we understand. Do you want to watch the triathlon?” What he will probably say is, “There are plenty of people out there who are willing to work on Sundays. Bear that in mind, and come back tomorrow to give me your views.” Any Member who believes for one minute that the Sunday working will be voluntary is living in cloud cuckoo land. If it is as easy as that, why did we not ask employees to opt into working on Sundays during the Olympics, rather than asking them to opt out? Many shop workers are forced to work on Sundays now, in spite of the Sunday opt-out rules. Like other people, they want to be able to choose how they spend their Sundays. The shorter trading and working hours on Sundays often mean Sunday is the only day they can spend time with their families. In spite of the pressure that is put on a significant minority of staff, most can still choose whether to work on Sundays, allowing them the option to spend time with their children or other family members on that day, or to attend religious worship. They know that if trading hours are extended, they will be forced to work on Sundays.

Many Members have given examples of workers not having a choice about whether to work on Sundays. Pressure is already exerted on many workers to change their hours and work on Sundays, in spite of the current opt-out right. Many shop workers are on flexible contracts that require them to work on any five days out of seven. A lot of companies would not employ someone who did not agree to work on Sundays. There are huge difficulties, therefore.

The impact on family life has been well aired tonight. The precious time families have together could be disrupted for two, or even three, months. Extending the Sunday opening times would have a devastating effect on staff, especially those with children. Many Members have pointed out that it is the only time that many people can spend with their families, because of school and other commitments including employment commitments, in the week. One lady said that she gets to spend only six hours a week with her children. Another commented that extending Sunday hours

“would truly destroy what little home life we have left.”

Someone else said:

“I have tried to organise working hours with kids and I believe Sundays to be a family day. Unfortunately I have difficulty getting weekend days off to spend time with my kids as they are at school Mon-Fri”—

as are most kids! Shop workers would welcome shorter working hours.

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

A few weeks ago, I tabled a parliamentary question on the issue of the amount of time parents and children get to spend together. The answer is that it has increased dramatically. Society has made gains in this regard. In 1975, mothers and children spent between eight and 21 minutes per day together. That had increased to between 51 and 86 minutes per day in 2000. That is progress. If these proposals are introduced and become permanent, we will regress.

[Ian Lavery]

I fully agree, and I was not aware of those statistics.

Many staff find it difficult to work on Sundays because of practical problems, such as lack of transport due to Sunday bus and train services. Where I live, there are very few transport facilities in any case. We in south-east Northumberland have not even got a train service.

Retail staff also experience seemingly endless demands for flexibility in their working hours. They know that if stores open for longer on Sundays, existing trade will shift from other times of the week and staff will be required to work more hours on Sundays and fewer at other times, such as weekdays, when it may be easier and more family-friendly for them to be at work. Based on the evidence of current widespread practices in retail, we know that if shops open for longer on Sundays, additional staff will not be taken on, but, instead, current employees will be forced to shift more of their working hours from weekdays to Sundays.

Is it not in everyone’s best interests to support the Opposition amendments? I hope the whole House agrees that the hard-working people in this country, and in particular those in the retail sector, are crucial to the success of the Olympic and Paralympic games—something we all crave for. No one here hopes that the games will not be a tremendous success. We want the games to be the envy of the world, but why have the Government not listened? Is it that ordinary people working in shops do not count? Is it that the Government are simply out of touch, or that they simply do not care?

There have been many guarantees. People have said that the Bill should not be seen as a test case for the future relaxation of the laws—“a Trojan horse”, as it has been described. The Minister and the Secretary of State have said that it will definitely not be; the Secretary of State was adamant that under his brief no such precedent would be set. However, as has been said, if the Bill goes ahead it will be a precedent.

The fact is that we have all experienced what the coalition Government have done in the name of the best interests of the nation, the national interest—“We have come together as a coalition in the national interest and we have to make difficult decisions.” We have seen the decisions on VAT and tuition fees. I tell you now, Madam Deputy Speaker, that not many people out there trust a single word that the Liberal Democrats say; if they and the rest of the coalition are telling people out there to believe them, they have a hard job on their hands. We should listen to hard-working ordinary people, who should be allowed the same choices as everyone else during the fantastic period of the Olympics.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

It was not my intention to speak tonight—I have been dutifully sitting on the Front Bench for two hours in my role as a Whip, listening to passionate speeches from both sides of the Chamber. I pay tribute to the many Members who have contributed. The DUP Members spoke with soul and spirit, and the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) gave a considered and passionate speech, as did many Labour Members.

One of the contributions that disappointed me was that of a Conservative Member. On being challenged as to where the proposed ideas come from, he said that we should look to America and held up its shopping malls as something we should copy. There is a theory that in the 18th century, the biggest buildings were cathedrals, which showed our spirituality. In the 19th century, the biggest buildings, including the Palace of Westminster, were Government buildings, which showed our belief in order. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the biggest buildings are shopping malls.

[Gavin Shuker]

My hon. Friend does not have to look too far away for the genesis of the idea for the Bill. It was contained in the red tape challenge documents of last year.

[Chris Ruane]

Absolutely. We are seeing huge shopping malls spread across the UK, but there is more to life than, “Work, consume, die.”

[Helen Jones]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government’s attempts to define the nation by how much it shops simply shows that the expense wasted on their education did not give them any sense of values?

[Chris Ruane]

As a political class, we have gone along with that trend. I include the previous Labour Government. We operated on the terms of “consumer” and “producer”; rarely was the term “citizen” used. We have lost a lot over the years.

If we want American shopping malls as the positive, we must live with the negatives of American society. Twenty-nine per cent. of American children have mental illness and 40% are obese; the proportion is likely to increase to 60%. Oliver James puts mental illness across the western world down to advertising. The purpose of an advertisement is to sow discontent and make people unhappy, so that they go out and buy the product. Two per cent. of American GDP is spent on advertising and it has the mental health rates I described. One per cent. of UK GDP is spent on advertising, and the rate is 0.5% in mainland Europe.

We need to slow down and ask ourselves as a society—and the Government have to ask themselves—what people out there want. They might say they want shops, but that is not what they truly want. In the rat race, even the winners are still rats. It is now recognised that to be a shopaholic, like an alcoholic, is to have a mental illness. People feel the need to shop and prove themselves through materialism, but let us remember that the flipside of consumerism is alienation, and the flipside of materialism is individualism. The breakdown of society, promoted since the 1980s, has a lot to do with it. People are far from their natures. Many of us—I include myself in this—are on this hydraulic treadmill. People try to provide for their children and buy the latest fashions—otherwise they are not normal—but this hydraulic treadmill, which is spinning too fast, will be sped up if we adopt this measure and make it permanent. We need to slow down.

I tabled a parliamentary question, answered on 15 March, about family happiness. The answer came back from the Minister that children were happier in a family if the parents judged themselves to have good relationships, but to have good relationships, they need a day off a week—at least—on which they can talk. Apparently a family was more likely to be happy if it ate more meals together. My favourite meal of the week is the traditional British Sunday roast. That will not be cooked or served if parents are out working. The third criteria for a happy family was discussing important matters. The most reflective day of the week is a Sunday.

We have made many gains, especially under the previous Government, including on flexible hours, the minimum wage, and maternity and paternity leave. Those were positive measures, but some Government Members see them as red tape and bureaucracy. I hope that tonight’s proposal is not a way of attacking those gains or a back-door way of disassembling what Labour has achieved over many years. We need to slow down. We need time for awareness, to sniff the flowers, to notice, to reflect, to have silence and to express gratitude. To do that, however, we need at least one day a week off. We broke into that. Many people now work six hours on Sundays, but we should not extend that. We do so at our peril and the peril of our children and families.