Indeed. The knock-on effects of the measure need careful thought and attention.
The consultation showed that 76% of local authorities, large and medium-sized business respondents and business representative organisations were in favour of the proposals, but while the Government told us that those organisations and local authorities were in favour, they failed to tell us about the proportion for individual responses. We all have a right to respond individually to Government consultations. We all have a voice. It is not just the big corporate bodies whose response counts.
My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and I duplicated a question to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills to ask what number and what proportion of respondents to the Department’s consultation published on 5 August responded yes and no—it is a simple question. The first question in the consultation asked whether people were in favour of the proposal, so surely it is possible to publish the number of respondents. That question was,
“Should local areas have the power to extend trading hours on Sunday?” and that is the question that we are debating today, so it would be useful to know how many individuals who responded to the consultation were in favour of the proposal.
The answer that my hon. Friend and I received from the Minister is one of the most extraordinary that I have seen in my 10 years here. It stated:
“The Department does not hold full data from this consultation broken down by specific question as a large portion of respondents chose to respond in their own words”—
I assume that they were English words and there was no problem of translation—
“rather than addressing the consultation questions directly, and/or did not indicate the type of organisation they represented.”
That is unacceptable. There should be a proper, accountable process that enables us to judge the response to the consultation on the measure.