HC Deb 08 December 1967 vol 755 cc1896-931

Order for Second Reading read.

2.11 p.m.

Mr. William Hamling (Woolwich, West)

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

First, I congratulate the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg), who has successfully piloted his Private Member's Bill through Second Reading. That Bill has my profound support. As a magistrate of many years' standing, it is a problem with which I had a certain amount to do in the courts. I express thanks to the House for this opportunity to introduce this Bill. I express thanks to those hon. Members who either abstained altogether or deliberately kept their remarks short in discussion of the other Bill so as to give hon. Members an opportunity of speaking on my Bill.

Sunday observance has had too long a history. The purposes of the Bill have a very long history in this House. My hon. Friend the Member for Rom-ford (Mr. Ledger) introduced a Bill 13 years ago—we often use the term "13 years"—with perhaps not very great success. The origins of this Bill spring directly from the Crathorne Report. That Report, as the House knows, was made as a result of a Committee set up by Lord Butler, when he was Home Secretary way back in 1961.

The Report was presented on 9th December, 1964, not quite three years ago. The purpose of the Committee was to review the law (other than the Licensing Acts) relating to Sunday entertainments, sports, pastimes and trading in England and Wales and to make recommendations. The general view of the Crathorne Committee, in its Report on Sunday trading, was that there was no objection to those forms of entertainment in themselves and no theological or ethical reason why they should be prohibited. It said that the modern view appears to be that if an entertainment is improper on Sunday it is just as undesirable on week-days.

There was a debate in this House on 15th February, 1964——

Mr. Richard Sharples (Sutton and Cheam)

1965.

Mr. Hamling

—15th February, 1965.

The hon. Member ought to know, because on that occasion he welcomed the Report and gave it his support. I hope that he will be fortunate enough to catch your eye Mr. Speaker, and that he will give a like welcome to this Bill. He did so on that occasion on behalf of his party in general terms.

It is fair to say that that debate showed very wide support in the House for the general lines of approach of the Crathorne Report. There were one or two exceptions an J I have no doubt that if my hon. Friend the Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Malcolm MacMillan) is called he may tell us—though I hope not in such lengthy terms as on that occasion—what is his attitude to this Bill. It is worth reminding the House that on that occasion only one English Member of Parliament who took part in that debate was, in general, opposed to the purposes of the Crathorne Report. Others were opposed, but there was only one English hon. Member. In that debate no Welsh back-bencher managed to catch Mr. Speaker's eye. Whether that was by design or accident, one does not know. This is no reflection on the Chair, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was thinking of design on their part to intervene.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Eric Fletcher)

The hon. Member should have said that no Welsh hon. Member sought to catch Mr. Speaker's eye.

Mr. Hamling

I think that that is a much happier phrase than mine.

This Bill is in identical terms with the one presented in another place by my noble Friend, Ted Willis. I am sure that unparliamentary reference will be taken in the spirit in which it is meant for I have never heard any friend of Ted Willis refer to him as Lord Willis. It is now six years since this Report was undertaken, so it cannot be said that there is any indecent haste in presenting the Bill to the House today.

This underlines perhaps a certain amount of reluctance on the part of Her Majesty's Government to introduce their own legislation, despite the undertakings given to the House in the debate in which an hon. Friend at the Home Office took a leading part. The Under-Secretary may recall that there was a specific commitment made by the Government on that occasion which today is being fulfilled in perhaps a very Irish fashion. As a Celt, I may be permitted to put it in these terms. Why should the Government not bring in such a Bill and have a free vote? We have had Government legislation on controversial matters of this sort many times—way back in the days of the struggle for Catholic emancipation in which my forebears took part. We always had Government legislation about religious teaching in schools.

There is no reason why, in this day and age, on a controversial subject such as this we should not have Government legislation. My hon. Friend the then Minister of State, Home Office, a Welsh Member, the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. George Thomson), said in the debate to which I have referred: The Government will not shirk their duty."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th February, 1965; Vol. 706, c. 963.] Perhaps it was a very good thing that it should be a Welshman who said that on that occasion.

The debate on that occasion was moderate in tone and gave a general welcome to the Report. It aroused no heated controversy. I do not see why there should be any difference in the point of view today.

Mr. Charles Doughty (Surrey, East)

As a member of the Crathorne Committee, will the hon. Member explain to the House that, apart from the recommendations about cinematograph entertainments, the Bill runs quite counter to the recommendations of the Crathorne Committee in what the Committee said should not—I repeat, should not—be done.

Mr. Hamling

Perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman will allow me to make my own speech. He will find that later I shall deal precisely with that point. If the hon. and learned Gentleman has read the reports, he will know of the general welcome which was given to Ted Willis's Bill in another place. I hope that this House will accord my Bill a welcome no less enthusiastic.

Mr. John Cordle (Bournemouth, East and Christchurch)

Does not the Crathorne Report come down quite clearly on the side of preserving Sunday as what it calls a different day?

Mr. Hamling

If the hon. Gentleman is fortunate enough to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, he can make his speech later in the debate.

I turn now to the question of what the Crathorne Report says about the present law. In the debate in 1965 the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam said: the present law concerning Sunday entertainment and sport is in a complete mess."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th February, 1965; Vol. 706, c. 870.] We all know what nonsensical anomalies there are in the present law. If one is musical, one can sing Harry Lauder's songs at a concert on a Sunday, but not in costume. This restriction does not apply to some of my Scottish hon. Friends, even if they are not musical. An actor can appear in a play on television, but will find it very difficult to do so on the stage. There can be an audience for a play on television, but not a paying audience in the theatre. We can pay to watch professional cricket on a Sunday, but not at the turnstiles.

All sorts of subterfuges are adopted. One can pay to watch motor racing on a Sunday at Brand's Hatch, near where live, but not at the turnstile. Frequently, on Sunday afternoon, vast crowds assemble at Brand's Hatch, as my hon. Friends who live in that part of the country know, but payment is made by means of a parking fee. The subterfuges which are adopted bring the law into total disrespect and produce a cynical attitude towards the law relating to Sunday entertainments. I hope that the House, as the upholder of law and of public decency, will want to see an end to this cynicism and disrespect.

In the debate on the Crathorne Report reservations were expressed about Sunday trading, which is certainly not part of the Bill. In that respect, the Bill is different from the recommendations of the Crathorne Committee, but the Government are concerned elsewhere with the question of Sunday trading.

Summing up the present situation, the House has already expressed firm views in general terms that changes in the law are necessary. Whether hon. Members agree with the terms of my Bill is another matter. I believe that the hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Doughty) will agree that there is certainly a need to change the present law.

There are other objections to change. I well remember in my days as a lay preacher hearing some of my colleagues say that any relaxation of the law in this respect would bring a continental Sunday to Britain, the clear implication being that there is something immoral or otherwise wrong about the continental Sunday. There is no evidence that continental countries are any less moral than Britain because of this difference. Other differences may exist, but this one is not the activating factor.

In any case, the character of the British Sunday has changed. It is now vastly different from what it was in my young days. I may be a little elderly in appearance, but I am not as old as all that. In my youth, I went to church three times each Sunday. We barely had time to have Sunday dinner. In fact, some of my friends never had dinner in the accepted sense, because the Nonconformist Church, to which I belong, held very long Sunday morning services which frequently lasted two hours. There were long sermons. Occasionally, I gave a sermon. We did not know the family dinner that the Crathorne Report refers to. We went to morning service, Sunday school in the afternoon, and again at half-past six, with the evening service possibly not finishing until half-past eight. Many of my young friends found such Sundays unutterably boring. I did not, but I am rather peculiar. I can often stand boring experiences much better than others.

Today, Sunday is quite different. The M2 on a Sunday is worse than it is on a weekday, even a weekday rush hour. This is why I leave my car in the garage on Sundays. I will never go to the seaside on a Sunday. I even have to be dragged to see my married daughter who lives at Gillingham because of my refusal to add to the rush on the Kent motorway.

Nowadays, on Sundays we have cricket and television. Sunday is vastly different. I wonder what people mean when they talk about the special character of Sunday. My limited Bill seeks to give Sunday a character entirely different from an ordinary weekday. Sport is limited. Entertainment is limited. In that sense, the Bill follows the general lines of the Crathorne Report. The changes are only modest. We hope that the family character of Sunday will be maintained. This is one of the purposes of my Bill.

People have changed the character of Sunday, anyhow. Millions now spend weekends away from home, either camping or at the seaside. Not everybody wants to spend Sunday in the quiet way that my family does at home. I nearly always spend Sunday at home. Most reluctantly will I spend it anywhere else.

Another stated objection is that the Bill will induce crowds. Already, entertainments of various types, conducted by means of subterfuges to which I have referred, draw crowds. If the Bill became law, I do not believe that it would make much difference to crowds. It would merely put everything above board, whereas it is now under the counter. This is the ultimate purpose of the Bill.

In answer to the objection which I know some will raise that this will cause people to be employed on Sunday, I point out that thousands of people in various parts of the country already work on Sunday and have done so for many years. It is estimated that 195,000 people in the entertainment industry work on Sundays, and there are others employed in transport, and so on. There is three-shift work. There is continuous process work, such as in the steel industry in Wales, on Sundays. Newspaper employees have always to work on Sundays. Thousands of people are employed on Sundays—cricketers, actors and entertainers of one sort and another. Therefore, I do not regard this as a very powerful objection.

A submission which has been made to me privately is that Wales is a rather separate case. Wales always was a separate case. As a Celt, I know this very well. Some people have written to me complaining that an Englishman should presume to be connected with a Bill which will legislate for Wales. I have not noticed any reluctance on the part of Welshmen, Irishmen, or Scotsmen to legislate in this House for London or other parts of England. But in any case I am not really an Englishman. Part of me is Irish in descent, part of me is Welsh, and I am not quite sure what the other part is. Certainly, I am not ignorant of Wales. The first holiday I ever had in my life was spent in Flint. I suppose I have spent more holidays in Wales than I have spent anywhere else. Therefore, I am not entirely ignorant of Wales.

Those who say that an Englishman should not legislate for Wales miss the point. We here are all Members of this House. We all have equal rights, and it would be a sad day if we established the principle that Scottish Members should not be entitled to speak on English Bills. After all, the Scots are very generous. They let me put down Questions on Scotland now and again. In fact, they seem to enjoy it.

But a special position is recognised in Wales. It was recognised by the Crathorne Report. Some may remember the evidence given by the Council of Churches in Wales that there should be local option in Wales. I have spoken to the Welsh Parliamentary Group. So far as possible, I have spoken to every Welsh Member individually on this matter to find out what is in their minds, because I am a tolerant man. I like listening to other people, as well as talking myself. I think that I can say that some Members are strongly in favour of Wales being excluded altogether from the Bill. Some would be strongly in favour of treating Wales on exactly the same basis as England is treated in the Bill—an entirely opposite point of view. There are some who would favour giving local option to opt into the Bill. My view is that local option of some sort would appear to be most acceptable to the majority.

What form should it take? It would be on the basis of the present licensing Acts, on a county or county borough basis. There could be local option by small local authorities. But I would much prefer to keep an open mind on this point. After all, this is a Second Reading debate, and it is the duty of the sponsors of any Bill to listen carefully to the points of view of other Members and not to take too strongly an entrenched position.

The broad aim of the Bill is to liberalise and rationalise the law while seeking to retain some of the special characteristics. I have already mentioned one or two recommendations in the Crathorne Report. Another is that restriction of spectator sports on a Sunday morning is qualified. In the Bill this restriction in the mornings will apply only to spectator sports when spectators pay to watch. Anyone who knows anything about amateur football will know that there is an extensive local fixture list on Sunday mornings, although I am not sure whether the Crathorne Committee understood it.

Secondly, on the question of the time, we have put forward in the Bill an even closer and tighter restriction than was mentioned in the Crathorne Report. That Report suggested that sport with paying spectators should start at 12.30. We suggest 2 o'clock, to give an opportunity for Sunday dinner.

As I say, we have left out Sunday trading, but we include professional sport on Sunday, and I say, "Why not?" If professional cricket is all right on a Saturday, why not on a Sunday? Indeed, we already have professional cricket on Sundays. Certainly, I see no difference between watching Rugby Union football at Cardiff Arms Park on Sunday and watching Wigan play Rugby League football. Frankly, I prefer to see Wigan, but that is my own local bias. If we leave out this provision, people find a way round the law.

This is a very modest Bill. I cannot envisage Sunday being vastly different from what it is now. I have no doubt that my own Sunday will continue to be the same as it is now—a quiet day spent at home, except for the mornings when I do my pastoral work, which is only round the corner. The afternoon I shall spend resting or reading or perhaps walking, and in the evening I shall be at home with the family.

I believe in freedom. I believe in other people's freedom as well as my own, as many hon. Members will know from what I said to the National Secular Society about religion in schools. The purpose of the Bill is to provide a modest amount of freedom for everybody.

Mr. Emlyn Hooson (Montgomery)

Before the hon. Member sits down——

Mr. Speaker

Order. I think the hon. Member has sat down. May I observe that quite a number of Members wish to speak in this debate. Therefore, brief speeches will help.

2.38 p.m.

Mr. Charles Doughty (Surrey, East)

As the hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Hamling) said, I was a member of the Crathorne Committee which reported on Sunday observance in general. Indeed, except for the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Social Security, I am the only Member remaining in the House who sat on that Committee. It did not consist only of Members of Parliament. There were on that Committee people from outside this House as well, and we went fully into the question of the laws relating to behaviour on Sunday. We sat for many years; many matters were discussed, and evidence was heard upon all those matters. I put my name to the Report, which was a unanimous Report except for one small matter on which Mr. Arbuthnot, the then Member for Dover, dissented because he would not go as far as the Committee went.

I shall not refer to the whole of the Report because it dealt with many matters which are not touched upon by this Bill. May I say at once that I regret that since the Report was published the Government have not introduced legislation to bring in the whole or any part of our recommendations. Matters of Sunday trading—if I may go a little out of order—are in a state of chaos and I think it is right that the question of what one can and cannot do in Sunday trading should be made quite clear. I believe that our recommendations, if they had been followed, would have made the position quite clear.

I now want to put myself completely in order and deal with two matters which are contained in the Bill. I shall deal with the Bill a little more fully than did the hon. Member for Woolwich, West in order to explain exactly what it does.

The second proposal, that relating to cinema opening and cinema charities, largely follows our recommendations, and that is not a matter to which I shall refer again. If the Bill had followed our recommendations, not only would I have put my name to it, if asked, but I should have supported it in the House. Unfortunately, it goes contrary to what we recommended.

I do not doubt that the hon. Member for Woolwich, West has spent a good deal of time in thought, preparation and discussion about what he should or should not introduce, but I can only say, with great respect to him, that the Crathorne Committee spent a very long time in considering all these matters. Committees are often criticised for being too slow in producing reports. Only after having sat on one does one realise how difficult it is to prepare and publish a report in a fairly short time. Many people wish to have their views heard—some of them extremely important and interesting and some of them, perhaps, a little less important and interesting—and then, after all the views have been heard, there is discussion and the final drafting of the report.

The Committee was not anxious—it says so in terms in the Report—to force people into church, to have a Sunday on which there is nothing left for people to do than to undertake religious worship, whatever their religion happens to be. We received certain views from the Lord's Day Observance Society, which, I say frankly, we did not accept, certainly not to any substantial extent. However, Sunday still retains a certain character. People's views may vary about it. For my part, I consider that a visit to church on Sunday is good for everyone. If more people had a little more religion in their hearts, there would be a little less crime and a little less trouble in this country. But that is not the reason why we formed the conclusions which we expressed in the Report.

Sunday, as I say, still has a certain character. People in employment, whatever their occupation, look upon it as a day when, substantially, they can mix with their families and be with their children, perhaps their grandchildren, too. They may go out into the country in their cars, even if they have them only on hire purchase. Sunday is a day off, except for people in certain occupations which have to be kept going in order to maintain the life of the community. Power stations must keep working, some railway work must go on, and so forth; otherwise the country would come to a halt.

Sunday must be a day off for the great majority of people, but this does not mean that everyone must sit at home twiddling his thumbs or going to church. What it does mean, however, is that one must not force other people in large numbers to come out and wait upon one.

I come now to the question of spectator sports, which is dealt with in the section of the Crathorne Report beginning at paragraph 104. I shall not weary the House by reading paragraphs of the Report at length. It is Cmnd. 2528, published in December, 1964, and it is there for anyone who wishes to read it. We found the question of spectator sports extremely difficult. Paragraph 104 begins: One of the most controversial questions we had to consider was whether spectators' sports should be permitted on Sunday and, if so, to what extent. We found it necessary to define more precisely what we meant by spectators' sports because they also come under the general heading of entertainments. The distinguishing factor appeared to be that spectators' sports provide entertainment by way of the spectacle of a competition or exhibition of prowess, and it is in this sense that we decided to use the term. The phrase 'exhibition of prowess' is intended to cover a demonstration of a sport or game. A friendly tennis match or cricket match between two village teams does not require many people to service it. The House will see from the Report that such a sport, game or exhibition of prowess was approved. I know that many hon. Members would not take the same view, and I entirely respect their attitude though I do not agree with it. I signed the Report, and my views have not changed since. The Committee saw no reason why that type of sport should not be undertaken.

What we were dead against, however, was the collection of large crowds such as would go to a football match on Sunday afternoon, with the consequent services which these people would require in the way of transport, police, refreshments, and ancillary matters of that kind. Transport workers, policemen and the like look upon Sunday, with any luck, as a day off—I know that policemen work on Sundays, too, but not to the same extent as on other days—and we felt that they should not be forced to turn out to deal with football crowds.

We found it a very difficult question to resolve. How could the one be allowed without the other? We decided that this should be the test. Professional footballers are professionals; they are paid for it, and quite right, too. Some are paid a lot of money. One reads in the newspapers of enormous sums being paid sometimes to professional footballers, and I am all for professional people being paid large sums. If they are not paid for working on Sundays, directly or indirectly—I emphasise the word "indirectly"—there will be no professional football on a Sunday afternoon.

I emphasise the word "indirectly" for this reason. It was put to us that a player might enter into a contract for his services under which he would play so many matches a year for so many pounds and he would play on Sundays for nothing. He might be required to sign that contract, or, otherwise, he would not get the employment. In such a circumstance, the promoters might truthfully say that both teams were receiving nothing for their services on Sunday, it being so provided in the contract.

We considered, and I am sure we were right, that such a contract would represent an indirect payment, since, if the man did not sign it, he would not have his contract to receive payment for playing on Saturday and other days. That is why the word "indirectly" comes into the question of payment in the definition as we stated it in paragraph 117. I need not read paragraph 117, but I turn to the summary of recommendations on page 64, recommendation (6): The existing prohibition on sports matches and meetings to which the public are admitted on payment should be abolished, but the promotion of a sports match or meeting for people to watch should be prohibited if the players or participants are remunerated for taking part. Remuneration includes indirect payment.

There is the question of amateur meetings. There have been references, for example, to Wimbledon, but I shall not go into the question as to whether the authorities, the Lawn Tennis Association, would permit tennis games there or not.

Mr. Hamling

What about "shamateurs"?

Mr. Doughty

Exactly. This is why I emphasise the question of indirect payment. It is a difficult matter, but it depends on evidence that there is an indirect payment. This is why we confined ourselves to the words "payment directly or indirectly", which would cover the person the hon. Gentleman describes as the "shamateur", who would commit an offence if our recommendations were carried into law.

I turn now to the Bill. Clause 2 would apply to a spectacle— (a) designed for the entertainment of members of the public; (b) consisting in a competition in a sport or game or demonstration of prowess in a sport or game"— and then there is reference to the times at which such spectacles may take place, with which I have no quarrel.

I can think of nothing more clearly coming within that definition than a big Cup Final or similar match. It is certainly a sport or game, and a great deal of prowess—or sometimes lack of it—is shown. Subsection (2) provides: If the occupier of any land permits it to be used on any occasion for enabling members of the public to enter on it for the purpose of watching thereon or therefrom a spectacle … Obviously, Wembley stadium or Chelsea football ground would be covered by that.

Under Clause 3(1,a) he would also be guilty of an offence if those persons or any of them make payment for the privilege of doing so … There is nothing easier to get round. We considered the point at far greater length than the House will have the opportunity to do today. Although there are obvious difficulties over the payment of players—I mentioned that of players with a contract for payment for weekday work with Sunday work free—it is much easier to get round provisions for non-payment for entry. There are many football supporters' clubs these days, and one could turn up at the ground and find at the entrance a large notice saying, "Join the supporters' club and get your free ticket here—membership 5s.".

There is also the question of car parks, which are fully used at many such places. The price for parking the car can be put up a bit and the occupants allowed in free. After paying say, £1, for a car park ticket, one can have four free entrance tickets. I could go on for a long time to show how easy it is to say that nobody paid for entry. That was on our minds when we said that the test must be the payment of players and not the price of entry.

I am sure that hon. Members will agree, whatever their views on Sunday observance, that we not only do not want to bring people from their rest to their usual employment on Sundays, but that we do not want big crowds making their noise throughout Sunday afternoon. Recently they have been even noisier than usual. I use the word "noisier" in a polite sense, for I could use a much stronger word. Do we want that on Sunday afternoon? I am sure that the answer is "No". For that reason I ask the House to reject the Bill.

The hon. Member for Woolwich, West kept on referring to the Crathorne Committee—I do not accuse him of misleading the House in any way—as if he were merely following its recommendations. But except on cinematographs he has gone right in the teeth of its recommendations. If he had followed them, I should support him, but I for one shall certainly oppose 1141. I ask hon. Members to do the same and to see that the Bill does not get a Second Reading.

2.52 p.m.

Mr. Malcolm MacMillan (Western Isles)

I am sorry that I cannot give my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Hamling) even the sort of consolation the hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Doughty) offered him in his last few sentences. Had my hon. Friend followed the Crathorne Report, I still would not have supported him.

That is not to fail to recognise that the extreme polarisation of views and attitudes on this question has become less extreme and differences blurred. I agree with him that there has been a considerable coming and going in opinion—that is both ways, and the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East, is an indication that he has taken a slightly different stand on this occasion from that of his last speech. I know that he wants to be consistent with what he said in his own report, but his present attitude reflects second thoughts since our last debate, when he made a highly constructive and interesting contribution. In my view there has been some change in attitude in certain respects, and he appears to acknowledge that that is so.

There used to be a tendency in these debates to miscall those who described themselves as Sabbatarians, or who defended the rights of Sabbatarians, "scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites." I am glad that that has not happened today, because t is unreal and untrue. On the other hand, all those who wanted the so-called Sunday reforms were attacked as favouring entertainment's scribes, licensees, and hippodromes. There was a certain amount of truth in both those charges in respect of a few individuals on some occasions; but it is as well that they should not be repeated today.

Between those attitudes there is a need acknowledged on both sides, for clarification of the older legislation. I think that the Lord's Day Observance Society itself takes that view. As the Report indicated, and as many hon. Members said in the last debate, that should be done systematically. In my view, clarification cannot be done properly and adequately through Private Members' Bills. They nearly always create new problems of consequential legislation, and in this case there would be a mass of it because of the inevitable involvement of millions of people, directly and indirectly, in Sunday work and every sort of problem associated with it. That flows from the nature of the Bill, its purpose and effect.

There is no doubt that clarification is desirable, but it should be done by legislation promoted by the Government and not by private Members. On such legislation, I go as far as to support clarification. But, after studying the problem for many years and from many directions, I see little real need for radical change or repeal in the Sunday observance legislation. My hon. Friend, and those who sponsored the Bill in another place earlier, attacked the present situation from the point of view of the so-called "antiquated" laws. I should have thought that the House of Lords was rather the last place to attack antiquated institutions; and I thought that my hon. Friend might be the last person to accept his political legislative diet from that other place. The so-called "antiquated" laws are attacked simply because they are antiquated, but in the Schedule to the Bill one finds proposed repeal references to far more laws of recent times—since 1930—than to older laws of, say, the 18th century. There are the Acts of 1932, 1949 and 1950 and later. Therefore, we should not be getting only at the antiquated laws, but as much at the more modern ones, including the legislation of the last Labour Government. I hope that my hon. Friend will think that over.

This Bill comes at a very bad time to do a very bad thing. At present the Government are trying to get people out of the service industries, not into them. They are even trying to squeeze them out and into manufacturing, into more useful industrial and social activity. Yet the Bill will inevitably not only directly involve hundreds of thousands of people in sport and recreation, in catering, transport and so on, but also indirectly up to 20 million people from the national work force. That is generally admitted now; and it was pointed out in the Crathorne Committee's Report that the changes now suggested would have that effect. These were the conclusions of a high-powered Committee of Members of this House and others drawn widely from the community outside.

I do not think that my hon. Friend denies that the effect would be a greatly increased number of people being employed in the service industries. This is not a very good time to try to promote legislation by a Private Member's Bill which is contrary to what is regarded by our own Government as in the public interest.

As I have said, the Bill would make inevitable a mass of prosecutions and litigation because of the misunderstandings which would inevitably arise from the impact on the present body of law of an inadequate single measure. The Bill does not cover any part of the field adequately even if one agrees with it. I am almost certain that one would have a large number of people "chancing their arms"—even more than now "chance their arms"—in the hope that the old Acts which have fallen into disuse will not be applied. The much-mentioned desuetude has a positive element of active virtue about it. I am content sometimes to see desuetude itself working things out—taking the place of formal legislation. It is all right to say that the old laws should be tidied up because the law is there and is being flouted or ignored; but if we do that we will have to tidy up a mass of other laws, and some very much older than those attacked in this Private Members's Bill today. I am sure that we would require a mass of new protective legislation—which the Government would have to promote once this Bill really took effect—it could not be done by Private Members' Bills.

As soon as one breaches the protective barrier which this Sunday legislation has constituted for millions of workers, as inevitably the Bill must in its impact, the trade unions and everybody else will be demanding legislation to protect them and to at least get back to the status quo before the Bill became an Act.

The Bill, moreover, further damages and erodes the universal application of the protection which Sunday observance Acts have given to millions of working people. The sooner we get back as near as possible to the universal application of the right to the enjoyment of one day of rest in seven, by Statute or otherwise, the better for all concerned. Any further breach of the universality of that right is damaging to all working people.

My hon. Friend said that his Bill would help to keep families together. I doubt it very much. Consider the family of which one member is a bus driver, another may be in the entertainment industry, and another may be in catering. Any one of those people can be called out on Sunday under the pressure of competition among their employers and their rivals throughout the country, just as on any other day. Once we start to open more catering institutions and provide more transport for sport or dancing and cinemas, everybody in catering and transport and the other services is bound to be drawn into it. Even the barber could be called in.

I remind the House that there has on several occasions been legislation about hairdressing on Sundays. At any moment the family, having gathered together under the benevolent wing of my hon. Friend, may find itself summoned away to work in three different directions: to transport, catering or the sportsfield. The Bill threatens, at all events, the right, by Statute or otherwise, of the family to come and remain together at one place and time as of right at a particular time when they can be sure of not being called out to work.

The Bill does not apply to Scotland. I am glad that my hon. Friend was sensible enough, as always, to say that we are not at present delegates from any one part of the United Kingdom, but that we are members of this House and representative members of the United Kingdom Parliament. While this Bill does not apply to Scotland at the moment, one can say that of foot-and-mouth disease. I should imagine that even foot-and-mouth disease would be easier to stem than this legislation which, on my hon. Friend's own argument, is so extremely popular. If it is all that popular, it will spread. Even if it were not popular, and we did not want it, it might still spread. Nevertheless, while he has not been so kindly to Wales, he has excluded Scotland, and I am glad.

The trade unions cannot take the place the Ten Commandments. Even George Woodcock, with all his persuasive power and his benevolence, is scarcely an adequate substitute for all the protective legislation, the Ten Commandments and all the other institutions that have hitherto protected the rights of millions of our working people throughout the centuries. The trade unions alone cannot be expected to take on the extra burden of further protecting the unnecessarily assailed rights of the working people.

I repeat that the antiquity of the Acts is no argument against them. Anyway, my hon. Friend has said that he attacks more modern Acts than old ones.

My hon. Friend might have made some careful study of the Acts he is attacking. In the older Acts, the emphasis is not on forcing people to go to church. I have never seen anyone forced to go to church. One does not see millions of our people being miserable and looking miserable merely because they do not enjoy the continental Sunday. This theme of masses of people going about looking miserable on the seventh day is nonsense. Indeed, one finds far more happy faces because people do not have to go out to work. This Bill would not make for more happiness for millions of people. Instead it would make millions more subject to the discipline of hard work when they should be released on that one day a week from it.

The main content or purpose of these old Acts is to stop abuses leading to wholesale breaches of the law governing the statutory rights of people to one day of the week at rest. In the Biblical Commandment also, by far the greater part of the "rubric", if I may call it

that, is concerned with protecting maidservants, manservants—ordinary working people—and even animals from exploitation on seven days of the week. If we had not had sabbatarian laws passed by Parliament and with this ancient Biblical sanction, our trade unions would have had to fight not for a five-day week but for a six-day week. These old laws gave the 5-day-week struggle a flying start.

The absence from the Bill of any protection for working people it affects is most damaging and retrograde, and would run against the whole fight of trade unionism and the Labour movement throughout generations for better conditions, less exploitation and more leisure. The Bill will not add to the rest and relief from work of working-class people. It is odd that it should be proposed from this side of the House. Many trade union members on this side used to fight against this. I remember John Banfield, John Leslie, and other trade union Members fighting against Sunday labour if it could possibly be avoided. It is surprising that not more trade union Members have raised objection to this proposal today.

The Crathorne Report was the product of months of assiduous and intelligent study by highly representative people; and, in justice to them, and in face of the fact that millions of working-class people would be involved in having to be available for labour for any of seven days, this Bill's promoters should give this more careful study. This Bill would be damaging to the rights of families to come together; although my hon. Friend said that one of its purposes was to enable them to come together on Sundays. It would undo the value of much of the social legislation, direct or indirect, for which this party and the House have fought for many years.

I was rather touched by what was said, although I did not approve, by the previous promoter of the Bill, Lord Willis, in another place. He said: It may well be that no appeal I could make to your Lordships, or to the British public, on behalf of this Bill would be more likely to go home to your hearts than if I say that if this Bill becomes law, British cricket may well be saved."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 21st November, 1966; Vol. 278, c. 13.] That was, I think, the final and feeblest appeal to the last infirmity of noble mind—watching cricket—but as a final argument must have been as touching as it was absurd. It must have been listened to with considerable appreciation and acceptance by their Lordships because, shortly afterwards, all opposition and even criticism appeared to wither away and their Lordships finally gave their consent to that Bill.

I am sorry that it should appear that, merely because the House of Lords has gone wrong, the House of Commons should follow suit. The Lords should be the last people to condemn laws merely because they are old. Parliament has time and again rejected any attempt at radical change in respect of our Sunday observance legislation.

In an interview in the Press, my hon. Friend is reported as saying that he wanted to "make Sunday the same as Saturday''. At the same time, he acknowledges today that it must be a "different" day. If it is not different from Saturday, what day is it different from? What is the point of all this? If he wants this "different" day, and wants it to be the same as Saturday, then he must know it would be different from other days only from the point of view of worse traffic congestion and everything else which he denies will not be among the worst results of the Bill. Saturday is a warning and an example, and if Sunday is to he like Saturday, he is using the worst possible argument and example.

Mr. Hamling

rose——

Mr. Speaker

Order. Interventions prolong speeches.

Mr. MacMillan

The hon. Gentleman says that gambling will not be permitted. How does he back this up? It is about the most impossible claim to substantiate. Who can prevent gambling? There would be a reversion to the bookie's runner, street betting, and all the rest of it, because if it is suppressed in legalised form, it will go into other illegal channels.

I could almost imagine one of these forms of illicit gambling becoming known as "Hamling's Gambling". Are we to allow this biggest legislative gamble of all to pass through unchallenged this afternoon—the gamble with the right of freedom from work on the one assured day of rest in the week for millions of workers and their families?

3.11 p.m.

Mr. Richard Sharples (Sutton and Cheam)

There is one point upon which I agree with the hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Malcolm MacMillan). I was under the impression, certainly after the debate of 15th February, 1965, and also as a result of Answers to Questions put down subsequently, that we would have had a comprehensive Government Bill on the whole subject of Sunday legislation. With all respect to the hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Hamling), it would have been very much better for the House and the country if we had had this legislation, with the full support of the Government, dealing with Sunday entertainment, Sunday sport and the opening hours of shops, which is equally important.

I must make it clear, that although I am speaking from this Box, the views I give are entirely my own. It is fair to say that this subject cuts right across party lines. There are those behind me who will certainly not agree with what I say, and there are probably those sitting opposite who will find themselves in agreement with me.

This question of Sunday legislation is a matter upon which we have individual consciences and views. It is quite right that they should be expressed here, without any question of party allegiance. When I last spoke on this subject, on 15th February, 1965, when we debated the Crathorne Report, I made it quite clear, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Sir E. Boyle), who also spoke from this Box, that we supported the principles of the Report, which drew a very fine balance between keeping Sunday as a day with a difference and bringing the law relating to the observance of Sunday, and connected legislation, up to date into line with modern conditions and thinking.

The present Bill, as the hon. Member for Woolwich, West has said, differs from the Crathorne Report proposals in three main respects. First, it differs in respect of spectator sports on Sunday mornings for which the public does not pay. Crathorne was somewhat more restrictive here than the existing situation. Few would object to a change in the direction proposed. The second main difference is the suggested time after which a more liberal attitude towards spectator sports would be adopted, which is put forward from 12.30 p.m. to 2.0 p.m. This was proposed to meet the objections, particularly of the Church, to having an open licence too early in the afternoon.

The third difference, and the really controversial one, is the question of professional sport on Sunday. After a careful study of the Crathorne Report and the views of others, I supported its recommendations in this respect on 15th February, 1965. The Report said that the recommendations were illogical, but were the best compromise between keeping Sunday different and allowing mass spectator sports.

I do not fully share the objections of some of my hon. Friends to large numbers of people watching sport on Sunday afternoons. After all, we do a great many things on Sunday afternoons. I make no excuse. I enjoy going sailing on Sunday afternoons. Many of us take different forms of recreation which frequently involve large numbers of people. That is not my objection. My objection to the present proposal is that there may be an element of compelling additional people who want to spend Sunday as they wish to go out to work to provide enjoyment for others. This is a very serious point.

Where perhaps I part company with my hon. Friends is in my feeling that we should examine this further during the Bill's passage, since further assurances will be needed. None the less, I believe that we should give the Bill a Second Reading although I would like it to be examined much more closely in this respect.

3.19 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Ennals)

It may be helpful if I take this opportunity to state the Government's attitude to the Bill. First, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Hamling) for introducing it and for the lucid way in which he did so. The criticism that there has not been a Government Measure on the subject is all the more reason to welcome his giving the House an opportunity to decide whether the time has now come to rationalise and liberalise the law on Sunday observance and, if so, in what way.

The subject of statutory intervention in the observance of Sunday has a long history and is one that closely affects individual consciences. As was said by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Sharples), perhaps this is the main reason why the Government feel that this is not the best reason for its being a Government Measure and why it is ideally suited for private Members' time. It is a matter on which differing views are sincerely and often tenaciously held. In these circumstances it is right that the Government's attitude throughout the passage of the Bill should be one of neutrality. Government supporters, whether Ministers or back benchers, will be perfectly free to vote as they wish, since in our view it would be improper in a matter of conscience such as this for the Government to try to impose a view.

The Bill is, apart from a necessary amendment to the operative date, the same as the one which Lord Willis successfully navigated through another place last Session. In spite of the Government's general attitude of neutrality, Lord Willis was afforded drafting facilities by the Government to enable him to present his proposals in appropriate legislative form. In the case of this Bill the services of Parliamentary counsel will be made available for the drafting of the Welsh option Clause that my hon. Friend will move during the Committee stage. The Government clearly have an interest to ensure that any Amendments should, like the Bill itself, be workable and in appropriate form. If the House gives the Bill a Second Reading, I must, therefore, reserve the right to comment on the practicability of any proposals put to the House during the Committee or Report stages.

Although the proposals in the Bill differ in some respects from those of the Crathorne Committee, its obvious purpose is broadly to give effect to the spirit of the Crathorne Report. This is to sweep away the existing clutter of obscure and often illogical statutory restrictions on Sunday entertainment and to replace them by a simpler and more liberal system, which, although representing a significant relaxation of the present law, will nevertheless preserve the special character of Sunday. It is the complexity and piecemeal nature of the present law which constitutes for the major part the case for reforming it.

The remedy to the present obscurity of the law on this subject proposed by my hon. Friend is simple. It is that there should be no restrictions whatever on any Sunday sport of entertainment, except that during the hours from 2 a.m. on Sunday morning—3 a.m. in London—until 2 p.m. on Sunday afternoon we should prohibit any sport or entertainment which spectators have to pay to watch. If the House decides that this is what it wants, then in our view it would be a clear and workable law.

As I explained earlier, the Government's attitude to the Bill is one of neutrality, but I hope that I shall not be accused of undue partiality if I express the hope that as a result of its consideration of this Bill Parliament will produce a law on Sunday observance which is clear and certain, and which, by being acceptable to the great majority of the public, will be respected and capable of enforcement.

3.23 p.m.

Mr. Gwynfor Evans (Carmarthen)

A short time ago I had to criticise in the House a Bill because it failed to regard Wales as a national entity. In this Bill we have the same weakness.

Neither of these Bills shows any lack of deference to Scottish national feelings. Clause 8(2) of the Bill before us says: This Act shall not extend to Scotland or Northern Ireland. Why the difference? I understand the feelings of the sponsor about this, but the fact is that there is no separate provision in the Bill for Wales. Therefore, in the eyes of the sponsors Wales is undeserving of the respect given to two other national entities in this country.

In Wales, we have had an Act on the Statute Book dealing with the question of the Welsh Sunday. It was the first of the social Measures that we had on the Statute Book dealing with Wales—the Act of 1881. So here we have a falling back from an old tradition. What we need now is a Bill dealing specifically with Wales. Wales should be excluded completely from this Measure. We should have a Bill of our own so that we may decide what we want to do in our own conditions, which are different because Wales is a nation—a nation with her own culture, traditions and values and national entity—as distinct as that of Scotland or England. Both Scotland and England have different national establishments in religion. Wales stands in contrast to both in having no State establishment of an ecclesiastical body.

The question of Sunday is bound up with the Christian tradition of a community, and the distinctive heritage of Wales must be respected in any Sunday legislation. Among those Welsh traditions is a particularly strong tradition in regard to Sunday observance. In this respect we show our kin with our sister land of Scotland. It is a common error to think that strict observance of Sunday in Wales is a recent phenomenon or a product of what is sometimes called puritanism or Victorianism. It is not so at all. The asceticism of the old Celtic church in Wales, which existed before the Roman Catholic Church in Wales, left its influence on the Welsh heritage, and although there was no rigid State control of the Church through mediaeval times the respect for Sunday was everywhere enjoined in Wales.

In a later age that was apparent, too, in the teachings of the great royalist Vicar Prichard as it was in the teachings of the separatist preachers. We had our separatism in religion before we had it in politics.

The use of Sunday has been very different in Wales in industrial and urban parts from what it has been in some parts of these islands. It is not the case today, I am sorry to say, but until quite recently the churches and chapels in Wales, have been filled and by a fair cross-section of the whole community, and the community is largely classless. They were filled not by people from one class or from the middle classes alone. It was quite usual in Wales to find manual workers in positions of authority in the churches.

In the chapel in which I was reared, for instance, almost the whole of the deacons were coal trimmers from the docks. They were not only men of spiritual purity, but articulate men of very high intelligence. That was not in rural Vs, ales, but was in East Glamorgan, in the most highly urbanised part of Wales.

It is people like those who have made the Welsh Sunday what it has meant for so many—a day of cultural refreshment as well as of Christian worship and a day filled with reading and with music, as so many of us know from personal experience. We are greatly indebted to that tradition in our personal history. That tradition is now threatened by something much inferior to it, something much poorer and something of diminished intellectual and moral vitality.

Although I wish to see the conditions created in which that kind of life shall thrive, I do not have any sympathy with those, for example, who like to lock up children's swings on Sunday, or who have that kind of mentality. Sunday in Wales is not like the old Sabbath. It is not a negative Sabbatarianism of which approve. That would be a dull and dismal phenomenon. The Welsh Sunday has been, and still is for those who use its facilities for worship and cultural purposes, a happy and relaxed day.

That kind of Sunday culture cannot be secured by legislation by either side, but there is a place for legislation in removing anomalies. The Bill, however, may create more anomalies than it removes. It will force thousands more people to work for the enjoyment of others. That is something of which I cannot approve.

It is true that in Wales and elsewhere, according to the Bill, the situation that it is intended to create will not come into existence until after 2 p.m. on Sunday, but that is the time at which thousands of people like myself go to Sunday school. In Wales, the Sunday school is not only for children, but is for adults, also. Our evening services are the most popular and are much more strongly supported than our morning services. The Bill, therefore, does not take account of the circumstances that obtain in Wales.

It is for such reasons as these that I believe that Wales should be completely excluded from this Measure. We, as a Welsh people, should be able to decide for ourselves—as a nation—what is to happen throughout Wales. I do not like this divisive idea of local option. We should decide, as a nation, what is to happen in Wales, and have the kind of Sunday we want.

3.30 p.m.

Mr. Hugh Jenkins (Putney)

I am rather horrified that the hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Gwynfor Evans) should wish to impose his own ideas on the whole of Wales. As one whose father was born in Wales, and as one who is very proud of his Welsh descent, I reckon myself as being not entirely unfitted to tell the hon. Gentleman that he proposes to deny to Welshmen the freedoms offered by this Bill because he himself does not want them, and thinks are wrong.

The hon. Member proposes to take Wales out of the freedom proposed for the rest of the British Isles—the Welsh are not to have it. In this attitude I see creeping out the authoritarianism that, unfortunately, lies behind so much nationalism. It is the authoritarian idea that others shall not do something that I do not want to do myself, and it is an idea which, I hope, the House will throw out with the contempt that it deserves.

Having said that, I would also say that in Committee I would support an Amendment which would give any local authority, be it English or Welsh, the right to say that in that community it did not wish to have the freedom offered by the Bill. That is the democratic way, because local authorities are elected and the community is entitled to express its view at local elections on whether or not it wants these freedoms. If the hon. Member for Carmarthen tells me that the people of Cardiff, for example, would exercise their right to deny themselves these freedoms, he has another thing coming.

Sir C. Black

The hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Hugh Jenkins) has given reasons why Wales should not be excluded from the Bill. On his own logic, would he say whether he favours the exclusion of Scotland and Northern Ireland?

Mr. Jenkins

That is a trap into which I do not intend to fall. The hon. Member, who has been in this House much longer than I, knows full well that it is customary for legislation affecting England and Wales not, in the normal way, to affect Scotland. Whether or not it will be decided that legislation affecting Scotland should follow in due course, I do not know. Neither would it be proper for me to express a view on that subject now.

As I say, there is one respect in which I would support an Amendment to provide local option. I agree very much with what was said by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Sharples). My thinking is very close to his. The Bill seems to go beyond Crathorne in only one respect. It is an important respect, but not a Second Reading respect. It seems to go beyond Crathorne only in a Committee respect, and I hope that, on consideration, the hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Doughty) will take the view that this is a Committee point and not a Second Reading point.

Mr. Doughty

The hon. Member will no doubt have read paragraphs 121 and 122 of the Crathorne Report, which give good reasons why local option would be quite impracticable.

Mr. Jenkins

I am aware of what the Crathorne Committee said about this, but that is not the last word. It was a Committee making recommendations. This House will have the last word and on other occasions it has discovered ways and means which have not been apparent to members of a Committee. There is a very good answer to the question. The method of opting out. The local authority should have power to say that the law does not apply in this respect to its community, but as I say, that is a Committee point.

If I am fortunate enough to be selected I hope to propose, or that some other hon. Member will propose, that there should be a Clause providing that no person shall be called upon to work for seven days a week. Hon. Members may perhaps wonder why, in giving evidence to the Committee, Actors Equity Association favoured this extension. The Association justified it because it has a tradition of public service. Members of Equity think it appropriate that they should perform on a day which is recognised as a day of leisure. They do not regard that as an imposition on them, but they would require—and the House should make sure that they get—a provision that in the event of work taking place on a Sunday it should be obligatory for actors to have another free day. Such a Clause should be written into the Bill.

Mr. Malcolm MacMillan

I agree with my hon. Friend, but would he agree that there should also be a provision against the victimisation of any person refusing to work on a Sunday?

Mr. Jenkins

My hon. Friend has taken the next sentence out of my mouth. I think it most important that no person should be called upon against his religious principles to work on Sunday as an obligation of employment. It should be quite impossible to write in a contractual obligation to work on Sunday if the person concerned has religious scruples against doing so.

Mr. Henry Clark (Antrim, North)

The hon. Member is advocating, and there is a great deal of ground to support it, a seven-day rule basis that no one should be forced to work seven days a week. If this were written into the Bill it would be a right, but how often does one find in ordinary daily intercourse that such a right is exercised? We have no legal obligation to pay bookmakers if they lose money, but most people do so. If there were a seven-day rule it would be largely inoperative, because very few would want to stand on their rights and refuse to work for seven days simply because that was stated in the Bill and many people who did not want to do so would be working on Sunday.

Mr. Jenkins

I hope that I can set the hon. Member's mind at rest. Provided the right is written into the Bill I think that we can leave it to trade unions to enforce it, because it will have legislative background. I have no doubt that the trade unions will see that the right is enforced in practice.

I think that with few alterations in Committee the Bill can become a very good Measure. I hope that the House will decide to give it a Second Reading this afternoon.

3.38 p.m.

Mr. Alasdair Mackenzie (Ross and Cromarty)

At the outset of the debate, the Chair gave a word of warning that hon. Members should be brief. I bow to that advice. This is a very important debate. The question of Sunday observance is always a vital question, and probably at no time more than at this juncture.

I listened with great interest to the hon. Member for Western Isles (Mr. Malcolm MacMillan), who is a veteran in defending the Sabbath day. Today, he was at his best. I am sure that we all admire the lucid manner in which he put his case. The Bill does not apply to Scotland, and for this we are very thankful, but the principle involved is of universal application. In that connection, I was pleased to hear the hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Gwynfor Evans) speaking for Wales, which he can do with no mean authority.

Right through the ages this issue has been coming up from time to time, and the legislation has been changed. Often those who defend the sanctity of the Sabbath are described as killjoys. I have I ved all my life among people who have a great respect for the sanctity of the Sabbath. I have found those people to be full of humour and of deep humanity. To refer to those who uphold the sanctity of the Sabbath as killjoys is irrelevant and contrary to the facts.

Each Bill that comes before the House on this issue has as its aim the further secularisation of the Sabbath. The Bill, if passed in its present form, would be the severest blow to the sanctity of the Sunday which has been dealt by any British Parliament within my memory and, I think, going even further back.

It is regrettable that the cloak of charity is often used as an excuse for Sunday entertainment. Some of the proceeds will be given over to charity, so we are told. I have no doubt that this is true. However, I do not think that this is a practicable point. It is either right or wrong to do this; there can be no compromise.

Even if we are not strict Sabbatarians, it is important to stress the benefits of the physical rest enjoyed on the Sabbath. The harder we work the more rest we need. Although in this day and age we do not work so hard physically as our forefathers did, in a world of great strain it is very necessary and helpful to have mental rest. Sunday is the appropriate day for that rest.

Those who are in favour of sweeping changes say that they respect the views of those who oppose the Bill, even though they do not agree with them. I would be the first to admit that this is the attitude of the hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Hamling). I am satisfied that he respects my views, even though I differ widely from him. I am grateful to him for the attitude he takes.

In opposing the Bill I want to make it clear that my authority for doing so is the fact that I regard Sunday, from my experience, as of great benefit to the working man—in fact, the greatest benefit to him that I can think of. The Sabbath is based on the moral law and on scriptural authority. All references to the Sabbath in the scriptures confirm this. This is where I base my own authority. I hope that this will be the view of the House.

We all agree that we live in a changing world and that all man-made laws must be amended from time to time, but there are basic principles which continue irrespective of party politics or social changes which take place. It is very important that we stress the basic principles of Sunday and that any legislation which we pass does not erode the sanctity of that day. It is because of these views, strongly held, that I ask the House to reject the Bill in its present form.

3.45 p.m.

Mr. John Parker (Dagenham)

In 1953 I introduced a similar Bill into the House. I would be the first to admit that the present Bill is much better and goes a great deal further than the Bill which I introduced and which was defeated by 281 to 57 votes.

At that time a big campaign was carried on against the Bill by the Lord's Day Observance Society, which managed to arrange for the dispatch of postcards from a large number of churches and chapels, all stamped and addressed to Members of Parliament asking them to vote against the Bill. As many Members had no very strong views one way or the other and had no pressure put upon them from the other side, they responded in that particular vote.

This Bill, as has been pointed out, passed through the House of Lords in the last Session, both the Second Reading and Third Reading being given without a Division. The main Amendment, which was to exclude sports attended by spectators, was defeated by 79 to 33 votes.

I take the view that there has been a very big change in public opinion since 1953. A recent opinion poll carried out by the Daily Mail showed that 75 percent. of the people approached throughout the United Kingdom favoured all sport on Sunday, 10 per cent. favoured only amateur sport and 15 per cent. were against any spectator sport. It was also estimated in that inquiry that about 18 per cent. of the population normally work on Sundays. I think that would still be approximately the case.

It is important to consider how this Bill will work if it is passed. First, it excludes any reference to the Shops Acts. I am certain that any changes in the Shops Acts would not take place without full discussion with the trade unions concerned and agreement obtained from them before any legislation was introduced on that subject.

As to the other changes in the Bill, there is no strong opposition from the trade unions. In fact, the trade unions take the view that they can look after their members so far as Sunday working is concerned. The very fact that in most jobs double pay has to be given for Sunday work is a very effective deterrent against unnecessary work being done on a Sunday.

I fully agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Hugh Jenkins) that if the trade unions want any particular Clauses written into the Bill in Committee they should be written in, and in particular I favour one to provide against seven-day working in one week. At the present time Equity, the actors' union, is almost 100 per cent. in favour of the Sunday opening of theatres. In 1953 they were split 50–50 and were not prepared to support any such proposals. In fact, at that time many of the leading actors and actresses took the view that although it might benefit the theatre by having a larger attendance on a Sunday than one could expect on a Monday, they personally would not gain because, Income Tax being what it is, they would not earn very much more. However, some of the leading people in the theatre, such as Sybil Thorndike and Edith Evans, said that, in the best interest of the theatre, although they might not have extra earnings as a result, they supported the proposal that the theatres should be open on Sundays.

Today, there are a number of theatre clubs. One gets round the law by belonging to a club and arranging to see a play there on a Sunday. I agree with what was said earlier about plays. It is quite ridiculous that a play may be acted and seen on television at any time on a Sunday but it may not be seen in a theatre unless it happens to be a theatre club.

Comment has been made about motor racing on a Sunday. There is also the anomaly as regards polo. I do not object to the Duke of Edinburgh patronising polo on a Sunday. We all know that the game is financed by people having to pay parking fees in order to see it. This is done with cricket as well.

As regards football, I take the view that, if people want to see football on Sunday, they should be able to do so. Those of us who may be wealthy enough or who have the facilities can enjoy ourselves sailing or something like that. It is only right that people who have no such facilities or who do not wish to do so should be able to do what they want, perhaps to see a football match on a Sunday. I am sure that the playing of first-class football would not become universal on Sunday afternoons. It would not be practicable for the first-rate teams to play on both Saturday and Sunday. The normal practice would be to play on one day or the other. Fixtures would be divided as between clubs in different areas, some playing on one day rather than on the other. For practical reasons, there would be a sharing as between Saturday and Sunday.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis (Rutland and Stamford)

This is a point which I should like sorted out, and it is one reason why I want the Bill to go to Committee. But is the hon. Gentleman proposing a law to effect something which he does not think will work out in any case? Is he suggesting that we should so provide, because he may want professional football on a Sunday, which I do not, or he is prepared to take the risk, on the assumption that it will not happen? This would be to make an even greater nonsense than the law is now, and it is a big enough nonsense already.

Mr. Parker

I am not saying that. What I say is that any team which wishes to play on a Sunday and invite the public to come and watch should be entitled to do so. That would be quite reasonable.

There is still an enormous number of anomalies. Some of the present laws are not enforced and some are. I cite two occasions which attracted my interest to this subject in the first instance. In Hastings, it was the custom at one time to have a table tennis tournament each year. People came from all over the country to the annual championship. Both players and spectators were charged a small fee to cover the expenses of running the tournament. No one made a profit out of the whole affair. Suddenly the Lord's Day Observance Society objected, and the tournament was declared illegal. The town clerk had to cancel all the arrangements, much to the irritation of all the people who wished to come or take part.

In my constituency of Dagenham, we have a town show every year which takes place over a weekend, on a Saturday and Sunday. The local clubs and organisations take tents to exhibit their various activities, try to recruit members, and so on. Among those who decided one year that they would like to have a tent and show their activities was a society of bee keepers. There are not many bee keepers in Dagenham. I believe that there were six in the society. However, when those members asked for a tent to be put at their disposal, the town clerk, after investigation, reported to the organisers of the show that it should not be permitted because, in his view, it would be illegal for the bees to work on Sunday.

There are anomalies in the existing law which are quite ridiculous and it is high time that the whole law was overhauled. If there are difficulties, they should be investigated in Committee. I go rather further. This is a matter of principle. We have people of all kinds of religious views and opinions and the State should not back particular religious sects in trying to enforce their views and behaviour on the rest of the people who do not believe in them. We have the Church of Eng and, the Church of Scotland, the Methodists, Baptists, Jews and Seventh Day Adventists—who believe in keeping the Sabbath on the seventh day and not the first—and now we also have quite a number of Mohammedans and Humanists.

The law should provide for all. It should not try to enforce Sabbatarianism, which is the approach to religion of a particular section of people, on those who do not believe in their views. To try to enforce them on people who do not believe in them is a form of religious persecution, and we should not have religious persecution in these days. Nobody is trying to prevent other hon. Members from doing what they want on Sunday. They are free to do what they wish on Sunday in accordance with their religious views, but they have no right to force me to conform to those views. We must resist this attempt to enforce any religious views on people who do not believe in them.

Sir C. Black

If it is a matter of principle about which the hon. Gentleman feels so strongly, why does he support a special close season between 2 a.m. and 2 p.m.?

Mr. Parker

I take that as a reasonable compromise to meet the views of people who have in the past held different views about Sundays. I am myself not necessarily in favour of that proposal, but it is in the Bill and is a reasonable compromise when making changes.

The State should not try to enforce on people a particular religious code concerning behaviour on Sunday. I have always noticed that the hon. Member for Wimbledon is a great exponent of individualism in the House, but on nearly all matters where the private individual should choose for himself what to do he wants to tell him what he should or should not do. That is a completely illogical attitude, which he takes up time and time again. He did so on the Abortion Act, and when other matters on which people should decide for themselves come before the House he takes the view that they must be dictated to, and forced to do what he wants.

Mr. Doughty

Does the extreme freedom that the hon. Gentleman advocates mean that people should be allowed to decide whether they should steal or not?

Mr. Parker

That is quite irrelevant.

The hon. Gentleman is entitled to the view that Sunday is created as a day of rest as a matter of divine policy, but other people do not accept that view of the Bible. We are entitled to study it as a historical document and interpret it in the light of the historical background. The historical evidence is that the earlier sections were written after the Jews' return from the Babylonian captivity, and the question of the Sabbath very largely came from the situation there. The word is derived from the Sumerian Sa bat, meaning "stop beating", because the view was taken that it was better to stop

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).