More views of - or after - Cambridge Film Festival 2011
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8 January 2012
Does anyone have any idea now what the UK law on Sunday trading protects - and how?
We have a regime, recently changed to allow shops to reopen on the chime of midnight as Sunday ends, where the larger shops (as defined by square footage, principally*) can only open for six hours continuously, starting no earlier than 10.00 a.m. and ending no later than 6.00 p.m.
(I am not aware of any obligation to open for the full six hours, so, if I am right, it would be possibly to be open just from 12.00 till 3.00.**)
Does that protect the workers, if they presumably can be in later than on other days for a start no earlier than 10.00, and give them the possibility of some lie-in? Is that at the heart of the legislation's thrust, though it doesn't protect workers in smaller, local shops (we know that names and brands), who still might have to start at 8.00, if not 6.00 (let alone the 24-hour petrol-stations)?
Or is it to protect the poor consumer / shopper from shopping him- or herself silly every day of the week...?
In any event, the premable of the enabling Act of Parliament (there are bound to be Regulations made under it), the Sunday Trading Act 1994, says (with great economy) relatively little:
An Act to reform the law of England and Wales relating to Sunday trading; to make provision as to the rights of shop workers under the law of England and Wales in relation to Sunday working; and for connected purposes.
Oh, I forgot, there is the protection for workers of being able to opt out (and not be penalized) of working on a Sunday - notices to be served, etc., and changing one's mind***. Which, of course, for someone who wants to devote him- or herself to the family and / or religious observance, is fine and good, but where do those other limitations on opening hours come from and fit in, not least 17 years on from 1994?
End-notes
* Thus: “large shop” means a shop which has a relevant floor area exceeding 280 square metres.
** Actually, that doesn't appear to have been envisaged, and is, at any rate, not possible (and might mean that someone failing to open for the full six hours could be taken to task, bizarre though that seems, for all that I know):
A person who is, or proposes to become, the occupier of a large shop may give notice to the local authority for the area in which the shop is situated—
(a) stating that he proposes to open the shop on Sunday for the serving of retail customers, and
(b) specifying a continuous period of six hours, beginning no earlier than 10 a.m. and ending no later than 6 p.m., as the permitted Sunday opening hours in relation to the shop.
*** Section 4 of the Act is, to say the least of it, terse: 'Schedule 4 to this Act shall have effect'.
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