It’s time to liberalise our outdated Sunday trading laws
Conservative MP Philip Davies recently tabled five amendments to the Deregulation Bill that aimed to scrap or relax the current Sunday trading laws, and with good reason – the current Sunday trading laws are outdated and it’s time for them to go, says Mark Allatt, co-founder and director of campaigning group, Open Sundays.
The Sunday Trading Act, introduced in 1994, prevents any store over 280sq metres from trading for more than six consecutive hours between 10am and 6pm. This act was a ‘middle way’ between the previous draconian restrictions and total liberalisation which had failed to get through Parliament. One of the reasons for this compromise being introduced was to limit the competition that convenience stores faced on a Sunday, restricting the hours that larger stores could open. However, major supermarket chains now dominate the convenience sector with their own stores that can operate outside of the 280sqm restrictions, thus making nonsense of this provision.
75% of the public already shop on a Sunday at least once a month, and a Comres poll for Open Sundays found that 64% of customers were in support of full support of a liberalisation. Simply put, people want more freedom to shop on a Sunday. The act is 20 years old this year, and while it may have been an acceptable compromise in 1994, we live in a completely different world than we did 20 years ago. The act was introduced before online shopping and we therefore need to take a new stance on Sunday trading to help high streets compete with online retailers. Some estimates suggest 12,000 shops face closure on the high street this year, and The Centre for Retail Research predicted that by 2018, an estimated 62,000 shops will close, losing 318,000 jobs in the process.
Yet online retailers are able to sell 24/7 with no restrictions, creating huge competition for high street retailers. Research from SAS & Verdict shows that almost 12% of retail spend last year was spent online, with online sales up 18% year on year in February 2014; with the continued growth of online shopping, how long will our high streets be prevented from responding to customer demands?
Previous reforms in Sunday trading hours have shown that it can be beneficial for the economy as well. The government suspended Sunday trading laws for eight consecutive weekends during the London 2012 Olympics in an attempt to encourage further tourist spending. The results for September 2012 showed an increase of 3.2% in retail compared to 1.6% the following month when the restrictions were back in place. This was a necessary move from the government; Britain can’t claim to be open for business to the world if our high streets shut down at 6pm on a Sunday.
Overall, reform would be beneficial for everyone. Shoppers get more flexibility, retailers get more options with their opening hours and workers get the opportunity to work longer hours should they want to. Lifting the restrictions will give everybody more choice, and with stores having the option to open later on a Sunday leisure services may open their doors later too, bringing life back into our high streets. Longer trading hours on a Sunday doesn’t force anyone to shop, and workers are protected by law from being forced to work on Sundays, but it would enable those who want to shop or work on Sundays to be able to do so.