Retail Store Closure: Boxing Day

Drew Hendry Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2016 Westminster Hall

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mrs Moon. I congratulate the petitioners and the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) on initiating the debate. It is a pleasure to be in the company of so many former retailers—and I was a retailer, too. I was thinking that my time in retail was such a long time ago until I started listening to the hon. Lady; all the memories came flooding back of those times and of the stresses at peak season, as we called it.

I should point out that I have been in not only physical, bricks-and-mortar retail, but internet retail. I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I have a shareholding in teclan ltd.

Being in retail is incredibly tough. If my memories are as fresh as the experiences that we have heard about today, it is an extraordinarily demanding job, not just at Christmas, but all year round. I know that from people who are still experiencing the kinds of pressures that I did when I was in retail. I started off on the shop floor, part time, and worked my way up through the trainee management programme. The worst kind of job must be doing trainee management in retail, because people really have to do quite a lot as part of that.

We have heard stories about people being pressured to work all the time—not just at those times when people should be able to have time off legitimately, but throughout the working day. I am talking about people having meal breaks standing up because they do not have time to sit down to enjoy their breaks. There is also pressure in terms of pay versus hours. In many cases, the rates of pay are quite low, which is challenging. Where they are better, that is often negated by the fact that the hours that people are working for those fixed rates are longer than they would be required to work normally. Retail staff have to put up with a lot.

We are talking now about people working on Boxing day and Christmas eve. Often, when the shop is closing on Christmas eve, it is a hive of activity, getting things ready for Boxing day, and people work late into the night. From personal experience, I know that that could go on until the morning of Christmas day in some cases. I very much hope that that has changed for most people, but I know that it did happen in those days and am concerned that there are still those pressures out there today.

The hon. Member for Warrington North gave some clear examples of gross unfairness in the system and the pressures that people are put under, and particularly cases where people feel that their job is at risk because they have not complied with retailers’ requests to work. That is clearly unacceptable and should be considered unacceptable by everybody. The hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) was keen, and absolutely correct, to demonstrate that he has great empathy and sympathy with the people working under those conditions. He was also keen to show both sides; he brought in the issue of internet shopping and the pressures on the retailers and businesses to cope with that. He mentioned there being something of a conundrum with that issue.

Has the boat been missed? I contend that it has not, and that there is still a lot that can be done. I hope that we will hear more from the UK Government. I want to talk a bit about what is happening in Scotland, in order to challenge some perceptions about that. While I am talking about Scotland, may I pass on the apologies of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens), who was keen to take part in this debate but was unfortunately the victim of delayed travel arrangements? He apologises for not being here to those people who expected him to be.

The hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Andrea Jenkyns) perhaps missed the point about people going shopping if they are not working. It is about choice. It is about what someone chooses to do with their family on the day; it is up to them whether they decide to go shopping to spend time with their family, or to stay home. She talked about her experience with Woolworths, Comet and Allsports; I bet that many retailers are glad that she did not work for them, given that they all went bust.

[Andrea Jenkyns]

I actually did not work for Woolworths, just for the record. I was just saying how they—

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Lady needs to be called before making an intervention.

[Drew Hendry]

I am, of course, introducing a bit of levity. I did not intend to—

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (in the Chair)]

Order. Can we not have conversations across the Chamber?

--- Later in debate ---

[Drew Hendry]

Thank you, Mrs Moon, I will bear that in mind. May I say, for the record, that I did not intend to cast any aspersions? That was merely a bit of humour that I hoped to bring in. One thing that I do agree with the hon. Member for Morley and Outwood about is that Boxing day is part of the key trading season. I remember being involved in retail and know, from speaking to retailers, that it has not changed, and is still an important part of the mix. Although it may not be the most important day of the year, it is still part of the important season for them.

The hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) brought up the spectre of Black Friday. I am so delighted that I never had to endure Black Friday. It looks like an absolute nightmare. He was right to talk about the quest for savings, because that brings us back to an earlier point: people have this desperation to go out and make a saving at that time of year, because they have been conditioned to do so by the sales process over many years. He was also correct to bring up the hospitality sector, in which a great many people have to work over the festive season, and they face quite challenging circumstances. Even though their arrangements can be changed, we should still think of them at this time of year.

I said that I want to talk about what is happening in Scotland. We should take into account that there is an opportunity here to look at different behaviours; the boat has not been missed if we can encourage retailers to act in a different way. It is not easy to ask them to change the drive for sales; I understand that, and as I said, I have been in that market. However, when organising Christmas rotas, employers should take account of the needs of employees with caring responsibilities—that should be a fundamental part of the job that they do—and of those with family far away, as well as other relevant personal circumstances, where possible, to ensure compassionate working practices.

If an entitlement to leave on Boxing day is agreed between an employer and an employee in a contract, that contract must be upheld. Employer flexibility should be part of ensuring that workers achieve the right work-life balance, which in the long run benefits the employer, the employee and the economy as a whole. Compassionate and fair employment practices, in which employers take reasonable steps to support the wellbeing of their employees, should be part of the foundation of any sustainable and inclusive economy. When employers are engaging on holiday rotas, especially over the Christmas period, all those personal requirements should be taken into account, and it should not cause someone disproportionate detriment to work on Boxing day.

The Scottish Government will shortly take forward a commission on a flexible job index for Scotland, to determine the availability of genuinely flexible jobs that meet the needs of people who want to work flexibly. The index will analyse the ratio of jobs advertised as being open to flexibility, breaking that down by city and region, by role type, by sector and by salary band. It will also seek to identify the demand for flexibility in Scotland and the proportion of people who need that flexibility. The index will be used as a key step to promoting flexi-recruitment and other working practices in the private sector. In 2017, the Scottish Government will pilot mentoring on flexi-recruitment issues for small and medium sized businesses, building on existing support services.

Employer investment in the wellbeing of the workforce will improve economic outcomes. This is proved time and again: when businesses look after the welfare of the employees who work for them, they become more productive, do better and often make more profit. We share the idea of the fair work convention that by 2025 people in Scotland will have a world-leading work life, with fair work driving success, wellbeing and prosperity for individuals, businesses, organisations and society. This vision challenges not only business but employers, unions and the third sector, and there are clear actions for Government. In Scotland, we fully endorse the convention’s framework and will work with it to embed its principles in workplaces across Scotland. We will continue to raise awareness among employers in the public, private and third sectors of the benefits of fair work, to promote the fair work framework and to champion fairer, better workplaces.

[Mr Hollobone]

I have listened to the hon. Gentleman’s speech with great interest. Things are always slightly different in Scotland—often for good reasons, but sometimes for not so good reasons. My understanding is that the Christmas Day (Trading) Act 2004 prohibits large shops from opening on Christmas day. The petitioners say:

“If only everywhere could be closed boxing day!”

I think they would like to see a Boxing day trading Act prohibiting large shops from opening on Boxing day. Would the Scottish Government support that?

[Drew Hendry]

The petitioners are quite right to look to protect the rights of workers. We heard compelling words from the hon. Member for Warrington North about the pressures that the petitioners feel need to be addressed. I am of the opinion that holidays should be respected; for example, in Scotland, traditionally, on new year’s day, shops are closed. I am unsure how we could make that work across the business sector, for small businesses and large retailers, through legislation. I have described the moves by the Scottish Government to improve the working lives of workers across Scotland through a different approach to working with businesses and organisations. In Scotland, the proper living wage, which is higher than the living wage that the UK Government have stipulated, has been adopted by a great many businesses. Encouraging good behaviour by businesses, including retailers, can and does work when we can get the message of positive change across.

[Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)]

I am interested in the hon. Gentleman’s answer to the question asked by the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone). Am I right in thinking the Scottish Government do not favour stopping large stores from opening on Boxing day?

[Drew Hendry]

I have clearly given my own view: I see this as challenging. I do not think there has been a proposition from the Scottish Government on this issue, and I would not presume to speak for them, so I gave my own answer to the question.

The way forward needs to be innovative and to include a different approach from the Government. We should adopt a model whereby retailers in particular—but other businesses as well—are encouraged to act. I gave the example of the living wage being adopted at a much higher level in Scotland. The Scottish business pledge has been signed up to, and employers have been encouraged to provide much better working conditions for their employees. There is measurable evidence that when businesses adopt those practices—when they are more considerate towards their employees and introduce measures to improve the situation for employees—they see increased productivity, increased profit and better sustainability. Staff are more likely to be retained and to stick with those jobs, and to be able to achieve a more effective work-life balance. We are discussing Boxing day, but the core of the issue is surely not just one day in the year, no matter how important that day is, or how stressful people might find it to miss out on it. This must be about making working conditions better for people across the entire year, so that they can all benefit from a better work-life balance from the beginning of January through to the end of December.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bill Esterson]

I am struggling to make progress, Mrs Moon, because I am being given all sorts of interesting suggestions.

My grandad told me that if people cannot afford to pay decent wages, they should not open a shop. That is a good piece of advice about being a responsible employer. He might have amended that, in the context of this debate, to say that if employers cannot give decent time off over Christmas, they should not be opening a shop, especially on Christmas day and Boxing day. The hon. Member for Kettering is suggesting one option. Only 1.5% of the thousands of staff surveyed by USDAW said they wanted to work on Boxing day, so something needs to be done and it needs to be addressed. One option, undoubtedly, would be to amend the Christmas Day (Trading) Act 2004; another would be to have a Boxing day trading Act. I wait to see what the Minister has to say on that score. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that if nothing is done through that piece of legislation, there should be action to ensure—this goes back to his earlier comments—that staff who do not want to work on Boxing day will not be under pressure to do so.

The hon. Gentleman reminded us that he voted against the Government’s attempt to include relaxation of Sunday trading in the Enterprise Bill in Committee and on Report. He will remember from that debate that points were put forward very forcefully and that extremely strong evidence was presented to us that many staff are simply unable to take time off on Sundays because of concerns and pressure, and the same applies to Boxing day, even though the legislation is different unless Boxing day is on a Sunday. We have to find some way of addressing the issue. I do not think the answer is necessarily for the Opposition to be prescriptive, but we need to get to a point where no one has to work in a large store on Boxing day unless they want to. Like the rest of us, they want to enjoy Christmas. They want to travel, see family and enjoy Christmas eve, not to feel under pressure through to Boxing day.

USDAW’s view is that the only staff who should be available to those large retailers at that time are volunteers. I suppose the point it is making is that if a store could manage purely with volunteers, there would be no objection in principle to that store opening. However, if stores are relying on only the 1.5% of staff who are prepared to work and the 5.5% of staff—I think that was the figure —who are non-committal, most stores would struggle to open without forcing staff to work.

Let me turn to the points about online trading. Things have changed since 2004. The nature and scale of online trading is very different. A number of hon. Members have made points about the impact of online trading on high street and, indeed, out-of-town stores. Perhaps the time has come to look at the needs of staff working in the warehouses such as those that the hon. Member for Kettering described in his constituency. Perhaps it is time to look at what the Government’s responsibility is towards staff who work in warehouses or for internet retailers, and the way in which they are treated. Those staff have a right to a Christmas day and at the moment they are not covered by the Christmas Day (Trading) Act, let alone by what we are talking about for Boxing day. The time has come to consider how that might be addressed and how we might get the kind of fairness that we would all expect for our own families.

Points have been made about the level of trading over Christmas. One estimate is that more than £77 billion will be spent in the Christmas period in the retail sector. Most of the people who work in retail, of course, are very low paid. As we have heard, premium pay is now a thing of the past in most businesses. In that context, is it too much to ask of the major retailers to do more to support their staff by not trading on Boxing day? Remember that those major retailers all have their own internet retail presences, so it is not as if they cannot trade online. By the way, plenty of people go online on Christmas day. It is not just Boxing day, is it?

Some online retailers do not necessarily fulfil orders. The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) made the point from his own experience in the internet retail sector—he may want to intervene to set me straight on this—that there are plenty of opportunities to delay fulfilment of orders. There are plenty of retailers that do just that, so they are not open 24/7.

[Drew Hendry]

I am grateful for the opportunity to underline that point. There is room for retailers to be innovative by using the new technology—what would in other circumstances be the challenge of internet retailing —to help to create a much more equitable situation with in-store retail. The big benefit of having in-store staff is that they can give advice. Boxing day is a day when people are picking up units. They do not need advice; it is just about picking up the goods at a discount.

[Bill Esterson]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention because it really adds to everybody’s understanding of the challenges, opportunities and some of the realities. Perhaps the Minister can take some of these points away and, as well as responding to them, look at how online and offline retail operate and at what might be appropriate in supporting staff in both parts of the industry.

I want to talk a bit about some of the retailers who have so far resisted the pressure to open on Boxing day, because not every major retailer does. The initial consultation for the Christmas Day (Trading) Act, which was carried out in 2002, suggested that competitive pressure was one reason the Act was needed. Although at the time not every retailer by any means was opening on Christmas day—indeed, it was only a few—the sense was that in the end everybody would have to do so to keep up or they would lose ground.

A similar pressure now applies with Boxing day. So far, retailers including Lidl, Aldi and John Lewis have resisted the pressure, and have done so successfully, which suggests a public appetite for delaying shopping to a degree. In the last year, those retailers have seen their trading figures go up at the expense of some of their competitors, but we do not know for how long that will continue. Earlier evidence suggests a concern across the sector that businesses will ultimately all have to work and trade on Boxing day unless there is Government intervention—nobody else can make such an intervention.

The Conservatives say that this is nothing to do with them—that it is a free market and that it is up to businesses to decide what to do. The problem, if we follow that argument, is who will prevent abuse. The problems with Sunday trading, and now with Boxing day, mean that workers are unable to take time off. Who will intervene to look after workers and ensure fairness between employers on the one hand and staff members on the other?

We have seen far too many abuses recently. We have seen the behaviour of Sports Direct, and some of Amazon’s behaviour in Scotland was highlighted over the weekend. A number of us will have constituents who have been affected by the cuts in pay and conditions at Marks and Spencer. It is all our responsibility, and particularly the Government’s responsibility, to intervene on the side of working people, whether on fair pay or hours of work.

Who looks after responsible businesses? The businesses I mentioned, Lidl, Aldi and John Lewis—and there are many more like them—want to do the right thing and act responsibly. How will they be encouraged and supported unless the Government introduce the necessary conditions so that they can do that without succumbing to competitive pressures? As we discussed when we were considering a statutory instrument last week, the Prime Minister is consulting on boards having a representative with responsibility for staff. It is regrettable that the Government appear to be walking away from having elected worker representation on boards, but will such board representatives be strong enough? Will they have the interest to ensure that staff are treated fairly? The concern is that the measure just will not go far enough. This is an example of where Government intervention cannot just be left to the market. It cannot just be voluntary.

Perhaps the time has come to consider a cautionary tale. We can either go down the route of supporting responsible businesses and treating workers fairly, or we can consider what has happened historically. I have mentioned some of the more recent cases, but we saw all sorts of horrors before there was Government support. I am not suggesting that the Minister is in any way interested in repeating what happened hundreds of years ago, but my mind goes back to “A Christmas Carol”. I wonder who Ebenezer Scrooge might be in this scenario. Surely not the Prime Minister.

Where is the line if the Government say they will not intervene? We used to send children up chimneys in Victorian Britain, and I know the Minister is not suggesting that, but let us remember the ghost of Christmas past and make sure that the ghosts of Christmas present and Christmas future show fair treatment for workers and responsible businesses. That is the way forward, and the right solution will ensure that workers are looked after on Boxing day, that family life is protected, that responsible businesses are encouraged and that there is the right balance between online, high street and out-of-town shopping. I challenge the Minister to deliver on that.