Orders of the Day — Shops Bill [Lords]

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 3:45 pm on 14 April 1986.

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Photo of Hon. Douglas Hurd Hon. Douglas Hurd , Witney 3:45, 14 April 1986

I should like to carry on for a little while, otherwise my speech will be unduly long. If my hon. Friend feels that he wants to intervene a little later, I shall give way to him.

Many of us see no contradiction between believing that the Shops Act 1950 is unworkable and should go and wanting to keep Sunday special. We see no difficulty or contradiction in belonging to both bodies of opinion.

Many people seem to argue as though the special nature of the English and Welsh Sunday has always been enforced by law. Of course, that is not so. All through the last century, and for half of this century, there was no effective law forbidding shops to open. At the high moment of the Victorian Sunday, when Mrs. Proudie and Mr. Slope railed against Sabbath day travelling, there was no effective law forbidding shopping on Sundays. Only in 1936 was the law brought into something like its present shape.

The House must discuss three options: first, whether to continue a 50-year experiment which brought in the criminal law to regulate one, and only one, part of human activity on Sunday — shopping — and an experiment which, in its present form, is collapsing; secondly, whether to rely for keeping Sunday special on tradition, persuasion and example, as in Scotland; or, finally, whether some compromise or middle way is possible. Those are the three choices before the House.

I do not believe that the first option to continue with the present law suffice. The 1950 Act no longer commands respect or compllance. I need not go through the ludicrous contradictions in the Act. Of course, no one defends them. As a result of the contradictions, enforcement is arbitrary.