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

Of course I agree with my hon. Friend that those workers deserve time with their families; she is absolutely right about that. The group of employees who stand to lose most under this Bill are those who started employment after the provisions of the 1994 Act came into effect and who, under their contracts of employment, not only work on Sundays but can be required to do so in addition to working other days of the week. So we have asked for two things. The first relates to the fact that, in general, there is no statutory minimum period of notice that must be given by employers to shop workers notifying them of a request to work on Sundays. The only thing an employer is required to do is to give new employees a written statement within two months of the start of their employment telling them that they could be asked to work on Sundays and explaining their right to opt out. Importantly, there is no requirement for employers to tell their employees when they will exercise their right to require them to work on Sundays after they have started employment. It would be unreasonable, as well as a breach of trust and confidence under the employment contract, not to give any notice, but the point is that there is no prescribed minimum period of notice that employers must give. Many employees will have received the written statement I have just mentioned a very long time ago. They may not even realise that they can be made to work on Sundays and that they can subsequently object, because it has never become an issue before. Because of the exceptional nature of the Olympics and the fact that a relaxation of trading restrictions on Sundays will inevitably lead to increased demands on shop workers to work on the Sundays concerned, we feel that it is not unreasonable to require employers to give employees two months' notice of a request to work on any of the Sundays in question. To put it simply, how will employees know that the law has temporarily changed, that they can object to working on Sundays and that they should object in time if proper notice of a request to work on those Sundays has not been communicated to them by their employer?