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

The majority of my constituents value Sundays as a special day, and I am sure that that is reflected in other parts of our country. The majority of people in our country still have Sunday as a day off, and it gives families a chance to spend time together. The Prime Minister said that"““from here on I want a family test applied to all domestic policy. If it hurts families, if it undermines commitment, if it tramples over the values that keeps people together, or stops families from being together, then we shouldn't do it.””" Findings from the National Centre for Social Research show that around 1.4 million parents already work regularly through the whole weekend. The so-called right to opt out on Sunday has not worked in reality, as it has often been impossible to exercise in practice and many employees have no such choice. Technically, while each employee can give three-months notice not to work on Sunday, everyone knows that that does not work in practice. Realities on the ground mean that people end up working on Sunday, and I know that many employers already pressurise their workers to work on bank holidays, too. We are told that the Bill constitutes a temporary measure, but we also know that the Chancellor has said that the Treasury may ““learn lessons”” from the experiment. Many of us believe that it is the thin end of the wedge, and that it will not be long before all shops can stay open for 24 hours a day for the entire week. In this country, we have many social problems and having parents who work round the clock does nothing to help. The economic argument for extending large stores' hours is not strong. The only companies that ““may””—it is not certain that they will—benefit from the extension are large stores, which already make huge profits. We know that small shopkeepers, who are the backbone of our economy, will suffer tremendously. The Secretary of State said that small businesses were being too pessimistic, but that is not true. The Government are not taking a realistic approach to the effect of the change on small businesses. Many hon. Members have referred to research by the Association of Convenience Stories, which opposes the Bill. The hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) said that my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) had mentioned its figures. I can now reveal that the magical document to which we have all referred is the House of Commons Library research paper, which states on page 16:"““The Association of Convenience Stores…is also opposed to the Bill because it thinks it will have a negative impact on small convenience stores. Based on figures from one thousand convenience stores, the ACS estimates that the total cost (in terms of lost profits) to the convenience sector in England and Wales of suspending Sunday trading restrictions for eight consecutive Sundays to be £480 million.””" In addition, the British Independent Retailers Association, the Federation of Wholesale Distributors, the National Federation of SubPostmasters and the Rural Shops Alliance, which together represent more than 60,000 shops, oppose the Bill. That is on page 17 of the House of Commons Library research paper, so hon. Members are not making these figures up or plucking them from thin air—they are real figures. They are being represented not by trade unionists or left-wing socialists, but by small business people who are genuinely and sincerely concerned about the impact of the extra hours, which will effectively be used up by the big conglomerates that will benefit from them. The small shops will suffer tremendously. It is still not too late for the Government to change their mind. In 2006, the then Department of Trade and Industry, which is now the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, carried out an independent assessment on whether there was an economic or business case for extending the hours. It decided that the current balance was fine and that there was no proper, coherent economic argument for change. We have heard Ministers say that the extension is for only eight weeks, but they are in the summer period, when most children and young people are off school, college or university, and when many families spend quality time together. Forcing parents to go out and work for those eight weeks so that the big shops benefit—and only the big shops will benefit—is clearly wrong. I therefore urge the Government to reconsider the Bill.