KSS Brussels March 24th 2010

First, may I thank the organisers for their work in arranging  this
conference and for inviting me to speak. We often order matters rather differently over the Channel. In the seventeenth-century I could have pointed you to an English poet called Richard Braithwaite who wrote that he had seen a Puritan in the town of Banbury who hanged his cat on a Monday because it had killed a mouse on the Sunday. How things have changed!  We now seem to have gone from one extreme to the other.

Under the provisions of the Sunday Trading Act 1994, we live with one of the most liberal regimes for sunday opening. Larger shops  ie, retail businesses with a floor area of over 280 sq meters (3,014 sq feet) - have restricted Sunday opening hours of no more than six hours between the hours of 10.00 to 18.00; smaller shops - ie, retail businesses with a floor area of less than 280 sq meters (3,014 sq feet) - can open all day. Some large businesses are exempt - eg, pharmacies, motorway service areas, restaurants, hairdressers and other businesses providing services. I shall show how we got to this point.

I speak for the Keep Sunday Special campaign which this year celebrates 25 years of existence. It was started in 1985 to campaign against a proposed deregulation of Sunday trading in England and Wales.

KSS’s founder, Dr Michael Schluter, is also responsible for setting up the Jubilee Centre – a  Christian social reform organisation which has done important work on the continuing relevance of Biblical teaching relating to a weekly day of rest. However, the Keep Sunday Special campaign was set up and is run as a conventional secular civil society organisation which has supporters from all political parties, from private businesses and the Trade Unions, with which we have always worked very closely, and members of all faiths and of none. Today I, as executive director of the Relationships Foundation, another of Michael Schluter’s organisations, have responsibility for the KSS campaign.

Keep Sunday Special enjoyed great success in its initial campaign.  The Shops Bill of 1986 was defeated in the Westminster Parliament –  only the second time since 1924 that a government bill was defeated at second reading . In the classic case study in the Modern Law Review Imelda Maher, now a professor in European Law in Dublin, recognised that the defeat was in part due to “a highly effective grassroots campaign orchestrated by the Keep Sunday Special Campaign.” One government official said that his department had been surprised by the large number of  “genuine letters from concerned people”.

But the superstores grew in power and arrogance in the years following this victory and they engaged in widespread disregard for the law.  And when the question came before Parliament again in 1994 the law was changed to allow Sunday opening within certain limits – essentially big shops may open for six hours. A further review of the law took place in 2006 with a government consultation – which KSS vigorously contributed to – which ended in the decision to make no change. So you can see the pressure is still on for further change.

A particular area of concern for us at the moment is an attempt by the superstores to get an exemption from the Sunday trading laws for what we call ‘Boxing Day’ – the day after Christmas Day – which this year falls on a Sunday. We are saying that the post-Christmas shopping orgy that now comes immediately after the pre-Christmas rush – our law does at least still protect Christmas Day itself! – should be postponed for one day, until Monday 27th – which is what already happens to the public holiday on December 26th when that date falls on a Sunday. This skirmish is a reminder that the main battle will be rejoined sooner or later.

Let me now turn to our case. Here are five reasons to Keep Sunday Special:

Protecting Relationships

My freedom to shop takes away the freedom of someone else who has to work. And once the shops are open all sorts of other people have to work also. KSS believes that children need to spend time with their parents for healthy social and moral development, and adults need time to develop the relationships with partners, family and friends that give them support and wellbeing. In this context, alongside our KSS work, we have also been promoting a parliamentary Weekend Family Day Bill. We have a growing problem with over one million families with children with at least one parent working on both weekend days. Our proposed Bill would extend current flexible working legislation and facilitate parents taking the same day off at the weekend. As the default weekend day off for most families will still be Sunday you will understand the relevance of this proposal to the central KSS campaign.

Saving local stores and services

The superstores want not only more money from the consumer but also to gain an even bigger slice of the market share by pushing out the small independent businesses. Local shops are important for the strength of local economies and the wellbeing of communities, particularly for the elderly and disabled and all those with no means of transport who depend on them.

Respecting faith

For many people in the UK Sunday has a particular religious significance as a day set aside for worship. Of course it's a view that's not shared by everyone in a modern multicultural society, but it's a view that we should respect. At present, our retail staff do have a legal right to request an opt-out from working on a Sunday, but in practice it means almost nothing. Those who ask for it fear they might lose their job, harm their promotion prospects or damage relationships with colleagues. A survey by the trade union Usdaw found that only 11% of their members have had the confidence to take up the opt-out, and 62% have come under pressure to work on Sundays when they didn't really want to.
 

Getting rest

We all need time to stop and time to rest: we’re made that way. For the sake of our personal health and wellbeing, everyone needs to have a weekly, regular and shared day off. As a society, we need one day a week when the pace of life slows down and we can enjoy leisure time with our friends and family.

Preserving community

With the erosion of Sunday as a different day from all the rest, communities are in danger of increasing fragmentation. Not only does this have an impact in terms of noise and congestion, it also hits community activities. Healthy communities are ones with high levels of what sociologists call 'social capital' – families, social networks, volunteering.

 
A final note. Our website has been showing its age for a while. I wish we could have launched our new website before this meeting – it’s on its way!  However, at the moment we are developing a fan page on Facebook and would encourage you all to come and support us!

May I end by saying how delighted I am to be joining you today: it is my earnest wish that in the years ahead we can all work more closely together for our common cause.