It appears that the Government's plans to relax Sunday trading laws for large retail stores may not materialise as many Tory MPs have threatened to vote down the measure. Scottish MPs too have joined the bandwagon.
Ministers, some of their aides and dozens of backbenchers are ready to block the plans unless they are altered before a Commons vote this week. Around 30 SNP MPs are believed to be pushing for the party to oppose the measures, although longer opening hours are already in force in Scotland.
David Burrowes, the MP who is coordinating the rebellion, said he believed that ministers were considering resigning to oppose the government. However, concessions to ensure that the new rules applied only in certain areas could pacify them, he added.
“There are 23 Conservatives who have signed up to stop the government's plan to deregulate Sunday trading for large shops and more lined up to oppose or abstain, including ministers and (parliamentary private secretaries). The government should recognise the strength of opposition for a plan that was not in our manifesto and should at least agree a compromise which restricts deregulation to tourist zones,” Mr Burrowes was quoted in a report in The Times.
Above all, the Sunday trading devolution and deregulation plan was not in the Conservative Party’s manifesto. It appears to have come out of lobbying by a group of London West End businesses, before finding its way into Chancellor George Osborne's Budget speech.
However, much debate has risen on the social implications of such a move and whether it is a good thing or not. However, the question of its effect on the high street has remained mostly untouched.
Some say the relaxed Sunday trading laws will help to contain online sales, with more availability on the high street. The argument does not hold water in today's time when much of the customer motive surrounding online sales is based around convenience. Tech firms are coming out with applications that make it easier for shoppers to purchase online without leaving the comfort of their home. Longer opening hours do not directly combat this lifestyle choice.
Association of Convenience Stores (ACS) chief executive James Lowman says: “Extending Sunday trading hours will not affect high street competitiveness with online shopping. A poll of 2,000 people conducted by Populus in January 2016 showed that of those who prefer to shop online instead of on the high street, not a single one cited Sunday trading legislation as their reason for doing so. The reasons given ranged from online shopping being more convenient, cheaper and easier than shopping on the high street but opening hours were not a factor.”
Subhash Patel, who owns a supermarket (V K S Food and Wine) in Richmond, says: “If the new Sunday trading law comes into effect, it will certainly have a negative impact on small corner shops and convenience stores. Their business will be severely affected. Many of them will have to wind up or work with reduced staff. There will certainly be attrition in such shops. And many of them will be reduced to a one-man shop, which will affect the family life of the shopkeeper for spending long hours in the shop.
“All this while shop-lifters targeted small shops, but in a scenario where small shops have to wind up because of lack of business, delinquents will zero in on big supermarkets like Sainsbury's and Morrisons, thus creating an atmosphere of fear and insecurity. This attrition, lack of employment, rise in minimum wage (£7.20 with effect from April 2016), increase in insurance cover and electricity bills for working long hours will have a telling effect on the economy. Besides, family life will go haywire as workers will have to work late on Sundays.
“I doubt the proposal will ever become a reality, but it all depends on the local council which has the last word on this. The Association of Convenience Stores and National Federation of Retail Newsagents are completely against this proposal and will fight tooth and nail to thwart it.”
ACS chief executive added: “Changing Sunday trading regulations will not help the high street; it would actually damage small high street stores as trade would get diverted to large out of town supermarkets. While ministers talk of increasing high street sales, the reality is that the public won’t have more money to spend just because the shops are open longer. People will simply spend the same amount of money over a longer period of time, increasing the cost base for many larger stores.”
Also, much of the debate comes back to the social issue of longer opening hours on a Sunday. Sunday has always been recognised as the day of rest. Sundays are best spent with family and friends, or simply to switch off from the working week. The same view is echoed by the Church as well. The concept of relaxed laws goes against this perception.
Chancellor George Osborne believes that changing the rules will provide a boost to retailers. He argues that with 11 per cent of retail sales online, shops need to open longer to compete.
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is positive about the proposal.
A Government spokesperson said:“Extending Sunday trading hours has the potential to help businesses and high streets better compete with the rise in online shopping and better reflect our changing shopping habits. The Government received a wide range of evidence during the Sunday trading consultation process, including evidence on the economic costs and benefits, which has all been carefully and conscientiously taken into account in developing our proposals.”
A Sainsbury’s spokesperson from Holborn says, “We do not believe devolving powers over Sunday trading hours to local areas is the right way to boost town centres and high streets. It’s the wrong priority at the wrong time and it’s not something our customers or colleagues are asking for. Reforming business rates, which affect bricks and mortar retailers disproportionately, would be a more effective way for the Government to make a real and positive difference to the high street.”
National Federation of Retail Newsagents (NFRN) chief executive Paul Baxter says: “Statistics show that devolving Sunday trading powers to local authorities and Metro mayors pose a real and serious threat to independent retailers at a time when there is no great desire from the public to do so.
“Indeed, 90 per cent of shop workers oppose extending current Sunday trading hours and 67 per cent of the British public are supportive of the current laws, while only one in eight people believe there is not enough time to shop currently on the sabbath.
More frighteningly, Oxford Economics have said that 8,800 jobs and £870 million sales will be lost from the convenience sector because trade will be dispersed from small businesses to larger shops.
“At the same time more than half (52 per cent) of local authority chief executives have said they will use the devolution to help out-of-town retailers, drawing further trade away from both high streets and smaller shops.”
The loss of small shops drains a locality's economic and social capital. Money spent in independent retail outlets tends to stay in the community, providing work for local lawyers and accountants, plumbers and decorators, window cleaners and builders.
According to a report in the Guardian, a US research finds that every $100 spent at a local store generates 60% more local economic activity than $100 spent in a chain store down the road.
Jane Jacobs argued in The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1960), communities are created by myriad small daily encounters: getting cooking tips from the greengrocer, hearing about a job from the butcher, recommending a good plumber at the bakery, exchanging opinions in the pub. “The sum of such casual, public contact at the local level,” wrote Jacobs, “…is a feeling for the public identity of people, a web of public respect and trust.” Supermarkets minimise human contact in the interests of efficiency and convenience. They cut the threads that hold an engaged community together.
The monopoly of supermarkets could make the high streets less lively, more and more off licence and FMCG shops would be shunned or remain empty or vandalised, and this in turn will damage the economy of the country. A thriving small, independent businesses are a must to boost the property value, economic viability and the social fabric of the locality.
(Guided by CB Patel)
