To Declare A Conclusive Victory Is Premature

Iain Dalton writes:

Leaked reports emerged in mid-June that the government was looking at relaxing Sunday trading legislation for a year. This was rumoured to be proposed very quickly in the government’s Coronavirus Recovery Bill.

The current legislation means large retail stores can only open for six hours on a Sunday between the hours of 10am and 6pm, giving many retail workers one evening they know they can spend with their family.

Until this announcement Usdaw officially had a position of passivity in the face of the growing undermining of Sunday opening restrictions, such as several local authorities relaxing enforcement and Morrisons blatantly opening for longer hours, summed up in many Usdaw members receiving the latest issue of Usdaw’s Arena magazine with Usdaw General Secretary Paddy Lillis saying the union “are not going to pursue this”.

Fortunately, since that announcement campaigning has been ramped up with a tool for members to write to MPs, and a survey of members. The survey revealed that an overwhelming 92% of members are opposed to longer opening hours for large stores, whilst 51% wanted to work fewer hours on Sunday (only 3% wanted to work longer hours).

It is this anger amongst retail workers which has led to the rebellion amongst backbench Tory MPs which means these proposals are not going to be in the Coronavirus Recovery Bill now. However, given Boris Johnson has been stating to the press that “...we will keep measures such as extending Sunday trading hours under review...” then to declare a conclusive victory is premature.