New Clause.—(EATING FACILITIES.) (Hansard, 6 March 1963)

§ Mr. Hare
I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
This new Clause fulfils the undertaking which my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary gave in Standing Committee to put down an Amendment requiring eating facilities in shops. In effect, the new Clause replaces Section 38 (5) of the Shops Act.
As my hon. Friend promised, I have carefully reconsidered the arguments for extending the Clause to offices. I fully sympathise with the objective of hon. Members opposite who argued in Committee for the inclusion of offices under the Clause. Both sides of the Committee and of the House want conditions and facilities for office workers to be better. That is the object of the Bill. I have read their arguments again, but they do not convince me that the extension of these facilities to office workers would achieve the objective hon. Members have in mind. Indeed, I fear that it might lead to the withdrawal of concessions, and this would be the last thing that any of us wanted.
It is the custom in offices for people to eat sandwiches at their desks. Some employers, looking at the new Clause, might, if their employees ate sandwiches on the premises, say, "I shall have to provide 'suitable and sufficient facilities' for them". They then say, "I have not the space", or, "I do not want to face this additional expenditure now, so I had better stop this practice of allowing them 434 to eat on the premises". I am sure that no one on either side of the House wants this. I do not think it is likely to happen in the same way in shops because, as I think the House knows, shop assistants do not eat their sandwiches in full view of the public. That is the reason for the difference in treatment which I suggest we should adopt.

§ Mr. Hale
I do not agree with what the Minister says about the practice in shops. Many shop assistants consume their lunch behind the counter. His argument is valid, but I have certain experience of London restaurants and of what would happen if one tried to provide restaurant facilities in a small professional office. Either one would put the firm out of business or the firm would have to order the staff to go out to a restaurant. This is a fair argument which I do not dispute, but why does it not apply to shops?

§ Mr. Hare
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman appreciates the main point. As he says, it might be quite impossible for employers to provide the facilities which are given in offices if a statutory requirement were placed on them. I think that we can afford to disagree as individuals on this. Experience shows that the majority of shop assistants do not eat their sandwiches in full view of the public. The hon. Gentleman may go to certain shops and see them eating behind the counter, but this is a valid distinction and that is why I have taken the view that I have taken.
The hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot) argued that there was no requirement in the Clause that a separate eating room must be provided, with which I agree, and that, if all that was required was "suitable and sufficient facilities" to eat sandwiches, an office chair would be eminently suitable and sufficient for that purpose. I do not think that that meets my point. It is not his or my interpretation of what is suitable and sufficient that matters. It is what the employer hinks and what the courts decide which might lead to the withdrawal of permission to people to eat their lunches at desks. For that reason, we have not extended the new Clause to cover offices.

§ Mr. Winterbottom
I should like to correct the Minister's view that most 435 shop assistants do not eat their sandwiches in the shop in which they serve customers. I worked in 27 of the 30 branches belonging to a firm by which I was employed. I had to eat my sandwiches in twenty of those branches in the place where I served customers, and no alteration has been made to those premises since.
I am not speaking of the big establishments in which there are usually rest rooms and rooms for eating, but in the shop in which I worked the dining facilities consisted of biscuit tins and I could hear customers being served less than two or three yards away. The time has come to provide proper catering facilities for those people who work in the distributive trade with which I was associated, namely, the grocery trade.
5.15 p.m.
I have tried in my own small way to devise words better than those in the new Clause, but I confess that when I did that I came across all kinds of difficulties arising out of my own experience. Therefore, while correcting the Minister's view that most shop assistants have elaborate or even adequate eating facilities away from the customers, I welcome the new Clause, if only because it will help those shop assistants who work in surroundings such as those in which I used to work. It will bring about a great improvement in conditions for them and for most shop assistants in the country.

§ Mr. John Farr (Harborough)
The hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Winterbottom) will find that conditions in shops have changed quite a bit since the very early days of his experience.
I welcome the new Clause, which is probably one of the briefest, if not the briefest, that we shall have in the Bill. That in itself gives it certain merit. It is, however, extremely vague. It refers in the first line to places Where persons employed to work in shop premises eat meals". It does not go on to define what a meal is, which I think it should do if it is to mean anything. Does it mean merely a sandwich in a paper packet? On the other hand, I know of a number of office workers in the City of London who have a two-course meal delivered by van at lunchtime.
436 The new Clause also refers to the provision of suitable and sufficient facilities for eating". Again, this appears to me to be rather vague. I know that in Standing Committee this point was debated fairly fully. It seems to me that the whole Clause rests so much on individual interpretation that it possesses very little value.

§ Mr. George Craddock (Bradford, South)
I am sure that both sides of the House welcome the new Clause. We are pleased that the Minister has carried out the undertaking which was given in Committee. The important point here concerns the words "suitable and sufficient facilities". These words can be interpreted in many ways in order to meet many circumstances and it will be extremely difficult to fix precisely what facilities should be provided.
This is a modest new Clause. The Minister has had the benefit of the Gowers Report, and reports have been made by various important bodies such as the Multiple Shops Federation, which represents large retailers, the London County Council and the National Association of Local Government Officers. Therefore, out of all this something will shortly reach the Statute Book. I am sure that this new Clause is welcomed by both sides of the House.

§ Mr. A. P. Costain (Folkestone and Hythe)
When we discussed this matter in Committee, I raised with my right hon. Friend the Minister the question of conditions in small lock-up shops in rural areas which close for lunch. Before we part with the Clause, can my right hon. Friend give an assurance that under the Bill it will be in order for assistants in those shops to have their lunch in them when the premises are closed for lunch?

§ Mr. Padley
The House should be clear that, by the Clause, the Government are giving us nothing. It is simply Section 38 (5) of the Shops Act, which has been in existence for roughly 30 years. It is being written into the Bill because another part of the Bill proposes to delete Section 38 of the Shops Act. I am grateful that the Minister has restored the status quo, but since this is merely a case of restoring the existing position there is no need for impassioned argument about it.

§ Mr. Hare
The hon. Member for Ogmore (Mr. Padley) has made a fair point. Much of what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) was answered by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Winterbottom) and the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. George Craddock). To get the proper wording is extremely difficult. The Clause will cover a vast proportion of the variety of cases which automatically must come within any definition which is put upon the Statute Book. As such, it is the best we can do. That, I think, is the general feeling of the House.

§ Mr. Hale
Will the Minister reply to his hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain)?

§ Mr. Hare
If a shop is shut, presumably there would be nothing to stop anybody eating in it.

§ Mr. Hale
The question referred to a lock-up shop in a rural area. The assistant may have come from a distance and has to work both winter and summer. I am thinking, however, not about a shop which locks up for lunch, but one which keeps open for lunch. Obviously, any premises which lock up for lunch constitute a different set of circumstances under the Clause.
If a shop keeps open all day and an assistant or two come from a distance and bring with them a meal to eat at lunch time, what happens? Do they have to be turned out into the snow to eat it, or what? In a sense, I put this point earlier. I am anxious to see the Clause passed and implemented, but we ought to know what we are doing.

§ Mr. Hare
The decision, presumably, would be that of the owner of the shop. If the shop were shut, presumably there would be no objection to facilities being provided in the shop and for its workers to use that facilities.

§ Mr. Hale
What about a shop which remains open?