Shops Bill (Hansard, 14 March 1986)

§ Sir Anthony Grant (Cambridgeshire, South-West)

I beg to ask leave to present a petition on behalf of nearly 2,000 of my constituents in south-west Cambridgeshire with which I agree and in which they express opposition to the provision for unlimited Sunday Trading in the Shops Bill currently before Parliament, recognising that Sunday has special characteristics as a day of rest, recreation and worship for the benefit of our family and community life. They pray that the House do maintain legal limitations on Sunday Trading to ensure that the special character of Sunday is protected. And your Petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray, etc. I have studied this petition, Mr. Speaker, and I can inform the House that it comes from all parts of my constituency, which consists of some 56 villages and parish councils, some of them more than 30 miles apart, and it comes also from a broad cross-section of the community.