I rise to support amendment 1, which bears my name on the amendment paper.
The Conservative party views family as being at the heart of a strong society, which is what we all want. Many Members have said that the Conservative manifesto made no mention of any changes to the Sunday trading rules, but it did have something to say about the importance of supporting family life. It pledged to
“back the institution of marriage”
and
“help families stay together and handle the stresses of modern life”.
It also recognised family breakdown as one of the four root cause of poverty.
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At the end of the previous Parliament, the Prime Minister instituted the family test, saying:
“We can’t go on having government taking decisions like this which ignore the impact on the family.”
However, that is just what we would do today if we were to pass the Bill without amendment 1.
Analysis by the Social Market Foundation says that the Government proposals disregard the family test. It says that Sunday working encroaches on family time; that fathers working on Sundays miss out disproportionately on time with their children, and not just on Sundays but throughout the week when their children are out; and that children whose parents have to work on Sundays often spend less time doing constructive activities that contribute to their development, such as reading and pursuing interests and sports. In other words, the policy is also at odds with the Government’s life chances agenda.
Perhaps that is why the impact assessment, which includes the family test assessment, has been published only today. It is wholly unacceptable for it to have been published at midday today. It contains 129 paragraphs and several annexes, and not one Member has said that they have been able to read it before this debate. A cursory glance at the document, however, shows that paragraph 98 states:
“To the extent that Sundays are family gathering days, there is a potential for families to be negatively affected if members are more likely to work or work longer on Sundays.”
Paragraph 100 states:
“A large number of the individual respondents to the public consultation felt that families would be negatively affected”,
but then goes on to say that
“this was not a representative survey”.
This was a Government consultation that had more than 7,000 responses; how can that not be a representative survey?
Let us be clear—there is no other way to put it—that these proposals are anti-family. I urge Members to vote for amendment 1 and to vote down the proposals in the Bill, because they are wrong. They are bad for families and bad for small business. There is no economic case and the public do not want them. In fact, when presenting the proposals to the Bill Committee, the only support that the Minister could cite was from retailers in the west end and Knightsbridge. To put it plainly, that is not sufficient basis on which to change regulations. The
Government have no legitimate rationale or mandate for these changes, so I urge colleagues to vote for amendment 1 and against the proposals in the Bill.