Enterprise Bill [Lords]

Joan Ryan Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Burrowes]

I will give way to my constituency neighbour.

[Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab)]

I am pleased to be a signatory to the amendment tabled by the hon. Gentleman, who is my neighbour, and to support him. As I am sure he knows, some 49% of retail workers surveyed are parents or carers, and their Sunday is special to them. In relation to what has been said about trusting our constituents to make their own decision to work, I am sure my neighbour knows that even in workplaces that have trade union reps to support members, many staff are pressured into not using the Sunday opt-out. In fact, something like a third of shop workers are pressured into working on Sundays, or they will have their working hours cut.

[Mr Burrowes]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady, who is included in the unholy alliance that, as I have mentioned, has come together on my amendment. She makes a very good and important point. We may have a choice about whether to go to church, shop or spend time with our families. We need to be a voice for people who do not have such a choice, perhaps because of caring or work responsibilities. We need to be very careful about imposing further requirements or obligations on them. That is important, and it is why we suggested having a family impact test. The impact assessment has been published today. The Government twice in parliamentary answers promised me they would do that. We must take the impact on families seriously, as the right hon. Lady says.

--- Later in debate ---

Let me turn to the Minister’s last-minute—indeed, after-the-last-minute—offer to invite local authorities to participate. Why on earth did he not do that in the first place? Let us be clear: there is no offer today for Government Members to vote for pilots, and no way of guaranteeing them. The Bill contains nothing about pilots. Do we take the Minister at his word, given what has gone before us previously on this subject?

[Joan Ryan]

Is my hon. Friend aware of any provision that allows Government Members to pre-empt a decision in the other place, or to offer this strange variant on a deferred Division on a proposal that nobody anywhere—other than those on the Government Front Benches, and possibly not all of them—actually wants?

[Bill Esterson]

My right hon. Friend makes a good point, and the Government have had ample opportunity in the Lords—[Interruption.] As my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) reminds me, this provision was not even mentioned in the Lords. It was not in the original Bill, and it was not mentioned until Second Reading, when the Secretary of State announced for the first time that the Bill would cover Sunday trading. The Minister had plenty of time to table amendments then, in Committee, or today, but he chose not to. Why should we believe a word he says?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I would like to accommodate two more speakers, if possible.

[Joan Ryan]

As they say, you may not realise what you’ve got till it’s gone—I think that applies to all of us and not just to you, Mr Speaker. Once our special Sundays are lost, it will be impossible to get them back. Hon. Members often say, “I don’t know which way I am going to vote. I’m going to listen to the debate.” Frankly, I defy any rational person—any Member of this House who has listened to the debate—to explain why they would vote with the Government. If they had really listened to the debate, they would surely support the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes). We have heard so much information from Populus surveys and USDAW surveys—perhaps I should declare an interest as an USDAW member—showing us that just about everybody is against the changes. Nobody wants them—including, apparently, the Prime Minister before the election—yet here we are.

The changes would be bad for business. All the evidence set out today has demonstrated that, so I will not repeat it. They would be exploitative to shop workers and others who work in the retail sector, who do not want them. The public and consumers do not want them. There is no evidence that anybody wants them, yet the Government have consulted on the deregulation of Sunday trading hours three times in the past four years. It has been somewhat unseemly to see the Government scrabbling around today trying to patch together some kind of last-minute deal that would in no way protect us against deregulation in the future. I urge hon. Members to vote for the amendment and to see the end of proposals on this matter for a considerable period to come.