Enterprise Bill [Lords]

Karl McCartney Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman]

The main reason I will be supporting the amendment tonight is that the Government’s proposal is bad for people who work in shops—it is bad for them as individuals, it is bad for their families and it is bad for their communities.

The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) made a brilliant speech, and I was very disappointed by the Minister’s response. The notion that the British economy can become more efficient only by making people work seven days a week is absurd. If that is the economic model, there is something wrong with the economic model.

People work to live; they do not live to work. There are lots of things we could do that would be more efficient. We could propose to our partners by text, or we could read to our children on Skype from the office, but nobody would suggest those things. The constant denigration of family life is truly unhelpful.

The protections for those in shops are not working properly. It is ironic that the legal advice against the proposals comes from John Bowers QC, who is now the president of Brasenose College—perhaps the Prime Minister should go back to his old college and get a little tutorial on this problem.

We know from the experience of the Olympics that this proposal will not strengthen the economy; it will just shift business from small shops to big shops. It will also not stop people using the internet. I am afraid the Minister’s proposal for pilots and evaluation is very much undermined by the way the Government have handled the issue in the last six months.

I know that the amendment from the right hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman) is well intentioned, but the irony is that every cathedral city in the land would be zoned and have longer hours, and it is the Church that is leading the campaign against longer Sunday trading hours.

I have had no representations from constituents in favour of change—only representations in favour of keeping the status quo. That is true whether people run businesses or work in shops. I will leave the last word to a woman who works in a shop in my constituency, who wrote to me saying, “Don’t I deserve a life too?”

[Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con)]

Like my good friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson), it is with a heavy heart that I will be voting in favour of the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes), who spoke so eloquently earlier. I say that because, to keep Sunday special, I will be voting against my Government—a decision that no loyal Government Member wants to take, and certainly not too regularly. It also means that I will be voting against my good friend and fellow sportsman, the Minister. He has spent some time speaking to me and other colleagues, trying to persuade us, but I think he was given a very sticky wicket. He will not mind my saying that he perhaps batted more like Geoffrey Boycott than Ian Botham. He did his very best.

The reasons why I will be supporting the amendment, and why other Members should consider supporting it, are based on three core issues: my Conservative principles and the traditions of our country; the impact on staff in all shops; and particularly the impact on small independent shops, their owners and their staff. These places are well used and well liked in the city of Lincoln, but if Sunday is no longer special, we will lose them.

There is something uniquely British—perhaps even Anglo-Saxon and, dare I say it, Christian and traditional—about the way we mark Sunday in this great country of ours. It is the one special day we have every week, and to lose that means losing something special about Britain. A week where every day is the same will mean a drab and very grey Britain.

As a Conservative who believes in our country’s traditions and culture, undermining that special day is not something I can support. I personally would go even further and look at protecting other days in the year, such as Boxing day, Good Friday and Easter Monday, perhaps by imposing current Sunday opening hours on those days. Sunday already provides enough opportunities for large-scale shopping—if someone is up early enough, they have a full six hours. Those who want to shop online will do so, whether or not larger shops are open for longer on Sundays. For those who do not want to spend all day shopping in large malls or superstores on Sunday, there are plenty of convenience and independent shops to go to, and I am fearful about the impact of this measure on those shops, which are the lifeblood of many communities across our country.

I want to live in a country with a rich mixture of shops, not an endless sea of large, faceless superstores. I fear that extending the hours of larger shops on a Sunday will diminish choice, impact on the livelihood of those owning and working in smaller shops, and ultimately damage businesses on our high streets. I am also concerned about the impact on the families of shop workers. As well as Sunday being a special day for those who do not have to work, we must ensure that it remains a special day for those who do work. If we extend shopping hours, there will be no respite for those people, and throughout the week all they will have is snatched time with their families—they will be on a conveyor belt of work that never ends. Everyone needs quality family time, or just time away from work. As the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) said, we should all work to live, not live to work.

I understand that big businesses want to sweat their assets. Closed large stores in Bluewater, Meadowhall or anywhere around the country earn no money from shoppers, and hence no profit for their owners. In the middle of the UK, I am sure that Bicester shopping village would want to open for 24 hours, 365 days a year, but what would be the effect on the staff working there? Sunday as it is currently is a Great British compromise that works for everyone. Retailers can trade, customers can shop, shop workers can spend quality time with their family, and we can still have that one special day of the week.

I do not want to live in a country where every day is the same, and where our traditions and uniqueness are lost. Upholding the traditional British way of life is important to me and my constituents, and that is why I will vote for the amendment. I hope that, after today’s reasoned debate, some of my Conservative and traditional colleagues will examine their consciences and support the amendment tabled by my sound and illustrious hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

The Minister’s proposals for pilots are what we call in Welsh a “cath mewn cwd”—a cat in a sack—and if we open that sack, we will get our noses scratched, as far as I can see. With Wales, the Government are bypassing our National Assembly, fostering a relationship directly with our local authorities. They are bypassing our Government in Cardiff and acting on the basis of that peculiar entity, “England and Wales”. Local authorities in England and Wales are to be treated as if they exist in the same country, national devolution is ignored and, as the infamous entry in the first “Encyclopaedia Britannica” put it, “For Wales—see England”.

I have two brief points. First, there is a precedent in terms of the council tax benefits that were devolved to local authorities in England, but to the National Assembly in Wales. Secondly, this particular matter is devolved in Northern Ireland and Scotland, and I would say that Wales should be treated no differently.