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

Lord Judd Excerpts

Tuesday 24th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, it is always a privilege, and indeed a joy, to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, who on issues of this kind sets a very high example in terms of the wisdom that he brings to bear on the issues before us.

The noble and learned Lord referred to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Newby, in which he drew attention to the letter from USDAW and the statistics it contains. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, was right to do that, because whatever we say and whatever our position, the burden of what we are proposing falls on the shop workers. It seems absolutely extraordinary to move into it for a temporary period—which accepts that it is something we would not normally want to do—without taking the views of the people who it is most going to affect fully into account.

I will not repeat them, but one of the statistics that impressed me greatly was that only 11 per cent—just over one in 10—of shop workers believes that they want to work in this situation. It seems rather difficult to accept that we go ahead with this when almost 90 per cent of shop workers say they do not want to do it and when it has all been apparently agreed that this is something we do not want permanently. We need to take this issue far more seriously than we apparently are. There have been consultations, but this was an effort to talk to the workers themselves and ask them what their views were.

I hope the Minister will forgive my drawing attention to the way he presented the case, but I am always intrigued in situations like these by the fact that people will have the right to opt out. But why on earth should the emphasis be that way? If you are going to have it, surely it should be about who wants to opt in, because we are intervening in what should be the normal arrangement of our affairs and expecting the shop workers to go along with us. I find it rather high-handed to say, “Well of course the person has the right to opt out”. Then there is the whole issue of the reality as distinct from the theory. I suggest there is not one of us who, in our heart of hearts, does not realise that in an awful lot of situations there will be all sorts of pressures one way or another for workers to comply when this provision has been introduced.

All this bears far more careful consideration. The Minister also referred to the irrefutable fact, which we should remember, that the provisions we have to protect workers’ rights in this context do not apply to everybody. They do not apply to an awful lot of people, as the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said. However, because something we believe to be right in one context does not apply to a lot of other people, that does not make the thing we believe to be right for the particular people we are concerned with wrong. It suggests quite the reverse—that perhaps the same provisions should be more widely available.

I am not a Sabbatarian but I do happen to believe that one of the crises in our society and its whole culture is a creeping and suffocating blandness in which everything becomes the same. Whatever the accident in history, in which of course religious conviction has played a big part, the concept that there are some days that are different from other days in all sorts of intangible ways helps to lighten the load of inevitability and monotony that seems so much to diminish quality of life for people. That is why we have been at great pains in our society—but I do not think that it all came from benevolence; a lot of it came through hard, determined and courageous struggle by workers and their leaders—so that, when there is no Sunday provision, there is a recognition that people are entitled to a day off every week. Of course, what is being proposed here is that people may well be, as I understand it, although not necessarily automatically, expected to work in addition to the normal working week on a Sunday. I find that really rather a strange paradox.

As the right reverend Prelate put it so well, the whole Olympic ideal is about taking us out of ourselves and seeing bigger things than just the mundane, monotonous practicalities of life. It is about seeing spirit and adventure and people being able to join in and that imagination that goes with the whole culture of the Olympic ideal. To say that for all sorts of immediate pressing commercial reasons a particular section of people are to have less freedom than they would otherwise normally have is a very strange paradox.

To conclude, this Bill illustrates the need for some profound thinking for where we are going as a society. Can the Minister reflect on the words that he used himself? He was talking about an unrivalled commercial opportunity, or words to that effect. There is a lot of anxiety among a lot of people about the commercialisation of sport and what it is doing to undermine the integrity, the character and the spirit of what sport should be about. To say crudely that here is an unrivalled opportunity to maximise our commercial opportunities on the backs of the athletes is quite a significant thing to be saying about the vision, imagination and self-confidence in idealistic terms of our society. It disturbs me—and it also disturbs me that we are saying that we must not miss an opportunity like this to demonstrate that Britain is alive and well for business. Of course, I want the world to know that we are alive and well for business, but I also want people to get a feel of what our society is like and the values that we take as important. If we send a signal to the world that we are prepared, on an issue such as this, to override something that is normally important, what is that signal to the world about our values and self-confidence as a nation? It is a pretty pathetic message to send out to the world. For all those reasons, what worries me is that it is a short-sighted, mean and oppressive piece of legislation that is unnecessary—because we do not pretend to argue, and I hope that we mean it, that it is something that we want permanently to happen in our society. It is quite unnecessary and I really cannot see why the House is being troubled with it among all the more important things that there are for us to be doing at this time.