Sunday Trading

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is right to mention the Scots, who already have deregulated Sunday trading hours, but I emphasise again that we are looking at this carefully in light of the consultation. Our proposal is to make the decision a local one.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, is it wise to tamper with what has been described as the great British compromise which the current Sunday trading law represents?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

My Lords, I think my noble friend was saying that he likes the current compromise, which does have a balance. Equally, there have been a number of changes in recent years, not least the enormous number of sales over the internet, which continue to grow—by 15% this year. The Government are rightly looking at the issue again to see if there should be more local choice, not least to encourage sales to tourists.