Lords Sitting of 29 March 1994

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Sheffield.

Legal Aid: Fees
Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they consider that the levels of fees claimed by counsel in legally-aided cases are justified.
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Mackay of Clashfern): My Lords, claims in legal aid cases which are not subject to standard fees are discretionary. Some claims are more reasonable than others. The system of taxation of costs is designed to allow reasonable remuneration for work actually and reasonably done.
Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe: My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord for that Answer. However, does the noble and learned Lord consider that it is now time for the Bar Council to take a grip of the matter and ensure that the taxpayer, and the general public, do receive value for money from leading and junior counsel who are representing clients on legal aid?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, the Bar Council does take seriously matters that relate to unduly inflated claims. Indeed, we have had some discussion with the council on that matter. So far as concerns the amounts actually allowed, as I explained, they are subject to a system of taxation, which is designed to secure that the amount paid by the taxpayer is reasonable, having regard to the work actually and reasonably done.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, did I hear my noble and learned friend correctly in saying, in accordance with what I believe to be the case, that all costs in legal aid which are not otherwise standardised are the subject of taxation by a judicial officer? Is that not part of the independence of the judiciary and an assurance that only proper sums will be paid?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, my noble and learned friend heard me correctly; I mentioned the system of taxation, which, ultimately, is under the control of the judiciary. Of course, there are different levels of taxation. The regulations that the Lord Chancellor is authorised to make in respect of England and Wales have a part to play in that taxation. However, the amounts actually awarded are ultimately decided, where contested, by the taxing authorities.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, is it not curious that, in Scotland, the amount paid per civil legal aid case is about half that in England? Can the noble and learned Lord tell us why that is so?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I hear a suggested answer from a friend of the noble Lord that that is as one would expect. However, perhaps it is not right for me to take that particular line. Each case must be determined in the light of what the procedures, and so on, require. It is generally true that there is a difference in level for corresponding work between Scotland and England and Wales. There are many factors that contribute to the situation.
Lord Irvine of Lairg: My Lords, can the noble and learned Lord confirm that the vast majority of cases conducted in the Crown court are on standard fees directly set by the Government, and that those fees have now been frozen for the second year running—that is, since 1992?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, it is true that a high proportion of the work carried out in the Crown court by counsel is subject to standard fees. The amount of money which is paid otherwise than by standard fees is a larger amount than the proportion of cases which are subject to standard fees might suggest. That is because the larger sums are those otherwise dealt with through taxation. As for standard fees, it is true that they have been the same for the past two years.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, does the noble and learned Lord believe that it is a good use of public money through the legal aid scheme to give such aid to Gerry Adams? He seemed quite capable of paying a lot of expenses in order to travel to the United States and run down this country.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, the Lord Chancellor has responsibility for the law and policy in relation to legal aid. However, the decision in any particular case is for the Legal Aid Board, which is subject to statutory rules and regulations made under statute. For obvious reasons, the Lord Chancellor is precluded from intervening in particular cases. Therefore, it was for the legal aid authorities to determine the claim of Gerry Adams. I have no reason to believe that they did not apply properly the statutory criteria to that claim. Everyone is entitled to justice in this country; indeed, it is part of our very wise and, I believe, proud tradition.

Unemployment: Government Assumptions
2.42 p.m.
Lord Barnett Lord Barnett asked Her Majesty's Government:
What they estimate the level of unemployment will be at the end of the century if economic growth continues at the rate they presently estimate.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Employment (Lord Henley): My Lords, the Government do not publish forecasts of unemployment. Government policies are directed at achieving sustained economic growth, low levels of unemployment and low inflation.
Lord Barnett: My Lords, I did not ask for a forecast: I asked for an estimate, which the Government have given in the Red Book to the year 1999. In the final three years of that period the Government have assumed an annual rate of growth of 3 per cent. Does the noble Lord agree that that rate of growth would not substantially reduce the level of unemployment below 2 million? In those circumstances, does not he think it right that the Government should go for higher levels of growth so that those sadly high levels of unemployment do not persist?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I think the noble Lord knows perfectly well from his own previous experience that we do not give forecasts, nor do we give estimates. We give assumptions. Those are stylised unemployment assumptions purely for planning purposes and as the noble Lord knows—and as he quite rightly told us—they are set at 2.75 million. That follows the long established convention of setting unemployment assumption flat at around about recent levels.
Lord Clark of Kempston: My Lords, does not my noble friend agree that the increase in small businesses over the past few years has increased the number of people who are employed? The recent budgets that have been introduced by my right honourable friend the Chancellor have given tremendous help to small businesses. That, again, is a good thing for the economy. Does my noble friend further agree that if mandatory interest were charged on late payers, that would give a positive cash flow to small businesses and would enable them to expand more rapidly and increase employment?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I think my noble friend's second point goes somewhat wide of the Question on the Order Paper. As regards his first point, he is of course absolutely correct. There has been a major change in the types of employment that different people engage in, and particularly in self-employment. The growth in self-employment has certainly replaced some of the jobs that have been lost.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, does not the Minister agree that probably the most important component of the expansion of our economy historically has been manufacturing industry? That ought to be the case now; but is the Minister aware that in January of this year manufacturing industry lost 13,000 jobs in one month and if that occurs during the next 12 months more than 100,000 manufacturing jobs will be lost that will never be replaced? Does not he agree that however many part-time service industry jobs may be provided by small businesses, they will not be as good for the economy as a return to the manufacturing base? In my opinion, this Government have quite wantonly destroyed the manufacturing base.
Lord Henley: My Lords, overall, unemployment is coming down. It fell by a further 38,000 last month and it has fallen by some 220,000 since December 1992. As regards manufacturing employment, obviously that is important but I think the noble Lord ought to have pointed out to the House that both productivity and
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overall production are increasing. The important thing is not the number of people who are employed but what they produce.
Lord Elton: My Lords, does my noble friend accept the report of the London economics survey commissioned by the Home Office last year that if the proposals put by the House of Commons into the Sunday Trading Bill are adopted the employment figures will be at least 5,000 worse than they are now?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I think that point will probably be better dealt with later on this afternoon.
Lord Peston: My Lords, I must say I think that must hold the House of Lords all-comers record for questions wide of that on the Order Paper. To revert to the Question that is on the Order Paper, I agree that the Red Book uses the word "assumptions" but it also uses the word "projections" and indeed goes out of its way to point out that the assumption over the medium term is the average of the projections made by the panel of independent forecasters. One has to ask the Government why they go to some trouble to point that out if they do not want their assumptions to be taken seriously. As all of the fiscal projections are based on these assumptions, with fiscal projections indicating a decline in government borrowing, are we not to take those projections seriously simply because they are based on assumptions?
Lord Henley: My Lords, the Red Book makes absolutely clear at paragraph 220 that:
"There are inevitably uncertainties about medium term prospects".
It then goes on to give variant PSBR projections based on variant growth projections. Therefore, for that reason we only make assumptions or projections and we only make forecasts for the immediate year.
Lord Peston: My Lords, I do not want to bandy words about assumptions and projections. What we want to know—certainly markets want to know—is what the Government actually believe will happen over the next four or five years. That is the point raised by my noble friend Lord Barnett. It would be helpful to everyone to know what the Government think is likely to happen.
Lord Henley: My Lords, we have made quite clear that we do not believe any valid purpose would be served by making projections about levels of employment in the future. We refuse to give such projections for exactly the same reason as the Labour Government—I appreciate that this was a long time ago—of which the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, was such a respected member when he was chief secretary, refused to make projections or predictions of unemployment.
Lord Carr of Hadley: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that our experience of forward forecasting tells us that whatever the figure may be in 1999 it will be far different from the figures we are talking about in these projections?
Lord Henley: My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely correct. It is very difficult to get these

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forecasts and predictions right. That is why, for these purposes, and purely for planning purposes in the PSBR, they are merely assumptions.
Lord Bonham-Carter: My Lords, did I hear the noble Lord correctly when he replied to the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, by saying that the number of people employed did not matter? Is that what the party he represents will tell the country?
Lord Henley: My Lords, I hope I can assist the noble Lord. What I actually said was that the number of people in employment did not directly matter—what matters is how much they produce. Both production and productivity have increased. At the same time I said that, overall, unemployment has fallen and is continuing to fall.
Viscount Tonypandy: My Lords, will the Minister reconsider his word; because he gave an impression that the number of unemployed people is not important? That figure is important to everyone who does not have a job. 'The Minister ought to phrase his reply differently for his own sake.
Lord Henley: My Lords, the noble Viscount, possibly unfairly, has misinterpreted what I said. I would be the first to say that for every unemployed man or woman it represents a tragedy, in particular for those who are long-term unemployed. We are seeing that unemployment is coming down. At the same time long-term unemployment—and that is by far the greater tragedy—is at a far lower level than the remainder of Europe. What is important is that we increase the number of jobs available and get as many people as possible back into work.
Lord Barnett: My Lords, the Government constantly claim that the underlying economic position is much improved. If that is the case, why are they not projecting or assuming higher levels of growth in order to bring down those very high levels of unemployment? Is it because of the fear still of inflation and its effect on the balance of payments? Are the Government not then stating that the price is worth paying, even if it means unemployment for more than 2 million people?
Lord Henley: My Lords, we are not forecasting or predicting. We make certain assumptions. We then give various illustrative projections depending on different rates of growth. The noble Lord has only to look at chapter 2 of the Budget Red Book—I can refer him to the appropriate graph—to see exactly that.
Lord Desai: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree with me that perhaps the best way of bringing down unemployment was the set of policies suggested in his White Paper by M. Jacques Delors, the President of the European Commission? What is the Government's attitude about that programme?
Lord Henley: My Lords, the best way of bringing down unemployment is to continue the policies that the Government are pursuing.

Nuclear Energy: Review
2.51 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy Lord Campbell of Croy asked Her Majesty's Government:
What is the timetable for their 1994 review of the role in the United Kingdom of the generation of energy from nuclear sources.
The Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Strathclyde): My Lords, considerable preparatory work on the review of the future prospects for nuclear power in the United Kingdom has already been done. The Government will make an announcement about the terms of reference and how the review will be conducted as soon as possible. Noble Lords will appreciate that I cannot prejudge the terms of reference.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his reply. Does he agree that decisions are needed soon to prevent British expertise being dispersed or lost to our country? Although nuclear generation involves decommissioning and capital costs, should not the financial benefits of reducing air pollution and greenhouse gases also be taken fully into account?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I am sure that those are exactly the kind of views that will be taken into account when the Government have decided the exact terms of reference. My noble friend is right: it is a review that we wish to deal with sooner rather than later.
Lord Peston: My Lords, did I hear the Minister aright when he stated that the terms of reference for the review have not yet been determined? Will he then tell us why it has taken the Government so long even to think up the terms of reference? It is not that difficult; I could help him.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I am delighted to accept the help of the noble Lord. The ultimate result may not be entirely what he has in mind, but I have never spurned his help in the past and I certainly shall not do so in this case.
The noble Lord is right. We have not yet issued the terms of reference. We are still consulting the various interested parties as to what those terms should be. As I said in my original Answer, considerable preparatory work has already been done but we still need to do a little more.
Lord Bridges: My Lords, will the Government confirm that it is their intention not to approve the construction of another nuclear power station until the nuclear review has been completed?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, in broad terms, and given the time that it takes to give approval to new nuclear power stations, I think that the noble Lord can take that as read.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, has my noble friend registered the fact that the nuclear fuel industry in this country believes that it no longer needs the fossil fuel levy to pay for decommissioning costs? Therefore the

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price of electricity costs for all of us would come down substantially. Will that factor be included in the terms of reference for the review?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, if my noble friend can contain his impatience for a little longer, I believe that he will find the answer to that question when we finally announce the terms of reference.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, expressed gratitude for the Minister's Answer. He was asked to give a timetable. Can the Minister come forward with nothing? Can he not give a prognostication of any kind, whatever name he gives to it?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, the noble Lord asks for a prognostication. I have given my answer in the best way possible. If that does not give the noble Lord satisfaction, I am very sorry.
Viscount Mersey: My Lords, can my noble friend at least give a prognostication on the likely start-up date for the building of the nuclear power station, Sizewell C? Does he agree that if we do not have that power station we shall be largely dependent on coal by 2020 AD?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I regret to say to my noble friend that that point strays somewhat from the Question on the Order Paper. These are issue which will have to be dealt with one way or another in the future when we make an announcement about the review.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, the review referred to must necessarily take into consideration the amount of energy produced by the coal industry. Will the Minister confirm, for example, that we shall be lucky to have 10 pits left after the present review? Is it not now obvious that the Government must consider their policy towards the coal industry on the basis, first, of the security of the supply of coal, and, secondly, the fact that coal is now cheaper than nuclear energy and any other forms of energy produced? Is it the Government's intention to consider their policy?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, we have reviewed our intentions towards the coal industry. The noble Lord will be delighted to hear that very soon in this House we shall discuss in some detail the future of the coal industry under the terms of the Coal Industry Bill.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Dormand of Easington, raises the issue of how wide ranging the inquiry will be. Although the Minister cannot tell us in advance the terms of reference, does he at least accept that, unless the review is fairly wide ranging, and not too narrowly related to the nuclear industry, it will serve little purpose?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, it is those kinds of issues that we are discussing within government before we can come forward with the terms of the review.
Lord Campbell or Croy: My Lords, while renewable sources can make a modest contribution to
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our supplies of energy and should be encouraged, are they not restricted by factors of aestheticism and environment? For example, there are strong objections to a massive increase in wind farms.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, yes, it is important to recognise that there are a number of environmental considerations, not simply relating to wind farms but also to the nuclear industry and many other parts of the energy-creating industry of which Government need to be aware.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, the noble Lord has not answered a single question about the review in 1994 of energy from nuclear sources. He has said that there are no terms of reference. He has not said what kind of review it will be or what evidence will be taken. Is the noble Lord aware that the Government are committed to that review in 1994? If they are committed, he had better get a move on.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I am surprised by the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel. I thought that I had answered all the questions rather well and made the Government's position absolutely plain.

Lorries: Maximum Weight Limits
2.58 p.m.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon Lord Stoddart of Swindon asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will resist any proposals to increase maximum permitted lorry weights beyond those currently in force.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Transport (Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish): My Lords, we have no plans to increase the current maximum weight limits in the United Kingdom. These are 38 tonnes for the general run of lorries and 44 tonnes for six-axled lorries carrying containers or swapbodies in combined road/rail transport. We have strongly questioned a recent proposal of the EC Commission to allow 44 tonnes for all six-axled lorries throughout the EC.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I am very encouraged by that reply. However, is it not a fact that by the end of 1998 the weight limit will rise to 42 tonnes? Is a panel of the European Community now examining the possibility of the introduction of a 48 tonne weight limit for heavy goods vehicles? May I have the noble Lord's assurance that if any such proposals should arise he will resist them and, if they persist, use the veto against them?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I can confirm to the noble Lord that in 1999 the limit will rise to 40 tonnes on five-axle lorries, and an 11½ tonnes axle weight limit. Currently we have a derogation back to 38 tonnes and 10½ tonnes axle weight. I can assure the noble Lord that we are sceptical of the case for 44 tonnes in general terms, although we approve of the case for 44 tonnes in joint road-rail transport, provided it is on six axles.
Lord Geddes: My Lords, I can see no reason why my noble friend should be, but is he aware that Sub-Committee B of the European Communities Select Committee of this House is more than likely to start an inquiry on exactly this subject and the dimensions of heavy lorries in the near future? That is with a view to producing a report before the Summer Recess.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for what I might call long notice of probably a request for my presence to discuss those difficult matters. Perhaps I should get out my calculator and get my weight limit and weight loading correct before I appear before Sub-Committee B.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, first I congratulate the Minister on the stand that the Government have taken in that regard. Does he appreciate that it has important implications for the sale of Railfreight, which will certainly be privatised? Any increased loading facilities on road transport might have serious effects on the price that the Government could command for Railfreight.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, that is exactly why the Government are determined to stand by their decision that the 44 tonnes and six axles should only be permitted in those cases where the lorry leg of the journey is part of a joint road-rail transportation. We are opposed to any decision from the Community to increase the limit to 44 tonnes for all lorries. As the noble Lord said, that would reduce the competitive advantage that the current limit gives to rail.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, in addition to the reasons the Minister has given, which the House supports, will the Government also give consideration to the environmental effects that heavier loads could create? As well as being a danger to ordinary people, they are a danger to our environment.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, it is a complicated subject. While 44 tonnes on its own seems a considerable increase, if the weight is spread over another axle the pressure on the road surface and the damage to the road are not increased. However, the noble Lord is quite right about lorries in general. We are keen to see a shift to rail of at least some of the current goods traffic that goes by road and that is why we have made that proposal.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, my noble friend referred to axle loads, which are important in regard to weight. However, for my benefit as another member of the sub-committee and for other members, will my noble friend confirm that the Government are concerned about the associated problem of unwieldy lengths of large lorries?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, the discussions about 38, 40 or 44 tonnes do not involve increases in the length dimensions of lorries but rather the amount of load the lorries can carry.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, the noble Lord has spoken of the Government taking a stand on
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the matter. Will he indicate to the House what he or the Government will do if they find a qualified majority against the decision in the European Community?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, the noble Lord has not let me down; I checked on the question in anticipation that I would receive it from him. The issue needs a qualified majority if the Commission's proposal to move to 44 tonnes for all loads were to find favour. However, I am happy to say that at the moment a number of member states agree with us on the need to keep the lorry limits to what we have and to use the 44-tonne limit as a bait to move transport from road to rail.
Lord Mowbray and Stourton: My Lords, I believe I heard my noble friend say that the axle weights are now allowed to increase to 11½ tonnes per axle. I seem to remember that the average bridge in Britain was built to take only 11 tonnes in axle weight. Have we strengthened the bridges? Am I wrong, or is my noble friend right? Are we doing something about it?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, we are both right. The increase from 10½ to 11½ tonnes will come in 1999. We have a derogation to allow for that and the reason is exactly because we need to increase the strength of those bridges which currently would not take 11½ tonnes axle weight.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, as a result of the new regulations there will be limited use of 44-tonne lorries. First, is the Minister confident that sufficient resources are to be applied to prevent maverick road hauliers from evading the rules? If so, perhaps he would be kind enough to outline what are the additional resources.
Secondly, does not the whole issue give increasing urgency to the requirement to transfer more and more freight from road to rail in a way that is far more decisive than anything the Government have announced or have intentions of doing so far?
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, as the noble Lord knows, the shift from rail to road has continued over many years and during the terms of office of many governments. We believe that some of the proposals that have been made, including the decision on 44 tonnes, should help to alter that. In addition, I hope that a more competitive railway network will, after privatisation, be more robust in marketing the advantages of rail freight operations.
As regards policing the regulations on 44 tonnes, there will be a requirement that the vehicle should carry a document to show that the cargo has either originated from, or is destined for, a rail terminal.

Business
3.7 p.m.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m., my noble friend the Leader of the House will, with the leave of the House, repeat a

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Statement that is to be made in another place on European Union enlargement: qualified majority voting.

Vehicle Excise and Registration Bill [H.L.]
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to consolidate the enactments relating to vehicle excise duty and the registration of vehicles. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Business of the House: Debate, 30th March
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Wakeham): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the debate on the Motion in the name of the Lord Cornwallis set down for Wednesday 30th March shall be limited to 5 hours.—(Lord Wakeham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Race Relations (Remedies) Bill
Baroness Miller of Hendon: My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the order of commitment be discharged.
Moved, That the order of commitment be discharged. —(Baroness Miller of Hendon.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Sunday Trading Bill
3.9 p.m.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Earl Ferrers): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee in respect of Clause 1 and Schedule 1 on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee in respect of Clause 1 and Schedule 1.—(Earl Ferrers.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Reform of law relating to Sunday trading]:
Earl Ferrers Earl Ferrers moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, leave out lines 5 to 7.
The noble Earl said: I beg to move Amendment No. 1, and with the Committee's approval I shall also speak to Amendments Nos. 2 and 3.
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The aim of today's Committee is to enable the Committee to choose between the options for the reform of Sunday trading law. With the risk of spelling out the obvious—and I shall take that risk—the options are: first, total deregulation; secondly, partial deregulation, which is proposed by the Shopping Hours Reform Council; and, thirdly, regulation, which is proposed by the Keep Sunday Special Campaign and Retailers for Shops Act Reform.
I do not intend to advise the Committee about the merits or otherwise of any of these options for reform —and I fancy that if I did, it would not make much difference. As I explained at Second Reading, the Government do not have a preferred solution. We recognise that although there is widespread agreement that the present law should be changed, there is no consensus about how it should be changed. The Government have therefore decided to leave the choice to Parliament. The Committee might find it helpful if I were to try to explain briefly the procedure which we might adopt today. I hope that I shall be acquitted of any charge of providing a "child's guide on voting". The principle of what we have to do is really quite simple, as I shall try to explain.
I prepared a memorandum on the voting procedure as an aidemémoire, and that is available in the Printed Paper Office. One noble Lord—rather ungenerously, I thought—said that he found the memorandum extremely complicated to understand. I replied that if it is complicated, I like to think that it is a good deal less complicated than it was before I put my hand to the tiller and addressed the problem —and the memorandum. But maybe therein lay the trouble. It does show that it is not always very easy to explain simply a simple problem. But, if I may have the Committee's indulgence, I shall try.
The Bill, as it now stands before the Committee, contains only one option; namely, that of partial deregulation, which is supported by the Shopping Hours Reform Council. In brief, this option allows all small shops to open at any time on a Sunday, but it limits large shops to opening for only six hours. This was the option which was chosen by Members of another place.
Members of another place started with all three options in the Bill. They had to remove two of the options, leaving the preferred one in the Bill. We, on the other hand, have the opportunity to remove the option which is in the Bill, namely that of partial deregulation, if we think fit, and to put in its place either regulation or total deregulation.
With agreement through the usual channels, we have grouped all the amendments together for the purposes of this debate. So there will be a single debate on all the options. When the Divisions come therefore I hope that it will be possible for them to take place one after the other without speeches being made on each amendment, as all the arguments will have been displayed in the one debate.
At the end of the debate the first vote will be on whether total deregulation should replace the option that is in the Bill. Those who support this proposition, should vote "Content" to Amendments Nos. 1 and 2. If Amendment No. 1 is accepted, then Amendment No. 2

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should be accepted without a vote as it is consequential upon Amendment No. 1. If Amendment No. 1 is not accepted, then I suggest that we should not divide on Amendment No. 2, which is, as I have said, purely a consequential amendment. If Amendments Nos. 1 and 2 are successful, Amendment No. 3 cannot be called.
Once the Committee has decided the fate of the first two amendments, the next question, which might be taken formally, is whether Clause 1 should stand part of the Bill. As your Lordships will appreciate, Clause 1 is a necessary part of the Bill whichever option the Committee chooses.
After Clause 1 stand part has been taken and, if Amendments Nos. 1 and 2 are not carried and total deregulation has not been approved then we shall come to Amendment No. 3. This represents the opportunity to replace the option which is in the Bill—namely that of partial deregulation—with the regulatory scheme which is proposed by the Keep Sunday Special Campaign and the Retailers for Shops Act Reform. This seeks to prohibit shops from opening at all on Sundays —with exemptions for certain categories of shops. All shops, though, could open on the four Sundays before Christmas. Those of your Lordships who are attracted to this option should vote "Content" to Amendment No. 3.
Once the amendments have been dealt with, we shall complete today's business with the question of whether Schedule 1 should stand part of the Bill. If Amendment No. 1 has been carried then it would be consistent for the Committee to disagree that Schedule 1 should stand part of the Bill, because Schedule 1 relates solely to the option which is in the Bill at present.
If the option which is in the Bill at present is removed, then so also should Schedule 1 be removed. However, if Amendment No. 1 has not been accepted, then those who support the option of partial deregulation which is in the Bill should vote Content that Schedule 1 stand part of the Bill. When the question of whether Schedule 1 should stand part of the Bill has been answered, the whole Bill will then be recommitted to Committee for the customary line by line scrutiny which noble Lords always give at the Committee stage of a Bill. It will then be possible to consider whether any fine tuning is needed. I hope that this is all abundantly clear.
Lord Elton: Can my noble friend clarify a point for me? He has described a process whereby one schedule has been removed from the Bill and another has replaced it, and has said that after that noble Lords who favour that option should not wish to keep the schedule in the Bill. Surely, if the amendment places a new schedule in the Bill, that schedule must still stand part. Can my noble friend help me in my difficulty?
Earl Ferrers: My noble friend is not correct, in that if the Committee decides to accept an amendment which replaces the schedule, that schedule then forms part of the Bill by virtue of it having been by way of an amendment inserted into the Bill.
This matter affects noble Lords in a variety of different ways, and of course, there is a free vote on this subject. The Government are not asking those who normally support the Government to vote in favour of
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any one of the options. Indeed, it would not make any difference if we did. Your Lordships would do—as your Lordships frequently do do—exactly as your Lordships like.
For my part, for what it is worth, I shall vote against all three amendments and for the option which is in the Bill, for a very simple reason. It is not because I do not want Sunday to be a special day. I think that Sunday is a special day and that it ought to remain so. But the fact is that the present state of the law is a complete shambles, and must be changed. Another place has come to a conclusion. It has taken 44 years and 29 Bills to enable it to come to a conclusion—any conclusion —and I see little advantage, and some considerable disadvantage, in asking Members there to think again. And, if we did, I think that there is very little likelihood of them coming to a different conclusion, arid choosing an option which they have already considered and have already rejected. I think that most honourable and right honourable Members are sick and tired of the whole subject and that they want it solved once and for all.
However, that is just my view. Others may hold a totally different one, both within government and on the Back-Benches. And Members of the Committee need take no notice of my views, and they should certainly not be interpreted in any way as "guidance" for those Members—if there are any—who may be in a dither as to which way to vote. Your Lordships will vote in the way in which your Lordships decide to vote.
The issue crosses all party lines, and it crosses all lines within parties. I fancy that, whichever Lobby Members decide to enter today, they may well find themselves in unusual company. I suggest that that is nothing to worry about. It is a simple process attaching to the passage of this Bill. I hope that this explanation has been of some help. I beg to move.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I take it that this will be a short and non-contentious debate. Members of the Committee who wish to express views on this matter have already had the opportunity to do so at Second Reading. Some 30 to 40 noble Lords did so and all but one of those speakers identified in their speeches the option for which they proposed to vote. Therefore I do not see why any of those arguments should be repeated and we should be able to proceed fairly rapidly to a vote. This will be a rational debate. Anyone who felt that discussion was being stifled had an opportunity to speak at Second Reading.
I join in the debate because some of my noble friends who support more restrictionist options than I do want to have something to attack. The conclusion that we reach at the end of this afternoon ought to be logical, fair and enforceable. I venture to suggest that the options of extreme restriction and half-way restriction would be difficult to describe as logical, fair or enforceable.
First, there is the Keep Sunday Special option. It proposes to discriminate between different types of shops, so that on Sunday toys could be bought from a newsagent but not from a toyshop, books could be bought from a newsagent but not from a bookshop and meat and bread could be bought from a small supermarket but not from either a butcher or a baker. Is

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that rational and enforceable? The option seeks to distinguish between different types of goods. So on Sunday a small convenience store could not sell groceries unless it also sold household cleaning materials; and on Sunday a chemist's shop could not sell nappies but a DIY store could.
The option seeks to distinguish between different sizes of shop, so that on Sunday a large DIY store could sell things which are necessary for the repair or maintenance of the structure of a dwelling but presumably not goods for use on other parts of the dwelling. Paint could be sold for painting a windowsill but not for painting an interior cupboard, and an electric plug could be sold for a drill but not for use on a toaster. I suggest that it is not a very rational distinction.
Finally, there is the distinction in the Keep Sunday Special option on the location of the shop and there are exemptions for those involved in sports or games. Does that mean, for example, that walking equipment could be bought anywhere in the Lake District or boating or surfing equipment bought anywhere in a seaside resort? The opportunities for confusion and injustice with that option are enormous.
The Shopping Hours Reform Council option is a good deal better, although the main argument put forward for it is that the total deregulation option is not politically acceptable. It is not that deregulation is wrong but it is not felt that the argument could be won. However, there are still the problems of defining the size of shop; the distinction between 270 square metres and 290 square metres still escapes me. There is also the proposal that many shops which now open for up to 12 hours a day would be able to open for only half that time.
Those options tell other people what to do. I suggest that, unless there is some positive evil or some positive nuisance to be overcome, we should not attempt to tell other people what to do. We should not attempt to follow public opinion from a distance. It is a fact that people in this country want to shop on Sunday. They do shop on Sunday, even though it is against the law. It is a fact that many people want to work on Sunday. I wonder how many Members of the Committee know that 20 per cent. of the workforce works on Sundays. They work in transport, the utilities and communications—all those services which we consider necessary. After all, we read newspapers on Mondays and expect people—indeed we allow their contracts of employment to require them—to work on Sundays. That is not the case under the Sunday Trading Bill because there is very firm, clear exemption for those workers who do not wish to work on Sunday.
The religious objection must be taken seriously. However, without saying in any way that we are in danger of becoming a theocracy, as we would were we in Iran or some orthodox parts of Israel, I suggest that it is a pathetic state of affairs when people are told what to do not because of their beliefs but because of their failure to comply with the forms of other people's beliefs.
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Those who wish to keep Sunday special should do so and may do so for themselves. The role of Parliament is not to attempt to enforce a particular form of observance on any part of our citizenship.
The Archbishop of Canterbury: I should like to begin by thanking the Government, and especially the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, for the care and fairness with which they have facilitated the consideration of the Bill as a non-partisan measure. I welcome the opportunity that we all have this afternoon to discuss and vote on three different options for change. I also want to thank the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, for his views and assure him that I do not want to tell people what to do. However, I want to state some of the implications.
I am reminded of the story of the Bishop who was a keen golfer but lived in a part of the country which took its Sunday seriously. One Sunday he sneaked off and had a quick round with a close friend. To his surprise and joy, for the first time in his life he managed a hole in one. However, his enthusiasm turned to dismay when he realised that he could not possibly tell anybody.
I have never been a great legalistic sabbatarian in these matters. I certainly do not want to turn back the clock to the days when nothing but religion was on offer on Sunday. Moreover, my concern is not that the Churches themselves could not cope if Sunday trading were deregulated. They have the flexibility and commitment to serve people, if necessary, at new times and in new ways, as many already do. That is not why the Bishops' Benches are full today. We are always glad to see the bishops in the Chamber on other occasions too. The main issue is the long-term interest of the community as a whole on a day of the week that is special and different from other days. It is a matter of conscience with far reaching, long-term implications. If we in this Chamber believe that the Bill before us does not represent the best choice for our country's future, it is surely our responsibility to ask those in another place to think again.
I gladly acknowledge that there are deeply committed Christians and other conscientious people on all sides of the argument. There are no devils and angels here. The option before the Chamber that has the greatest element of regulation is itself a compromise, allowing a substantial volume of trading to take place. However, the key question for me is: Do we allow market forces and consumer choice to determine the character of our Sunday, with little or no regulation; or do we believe that regulation should secure a real compromise between those forces and other wider considerations in the public interest?
Contrary to the popular habit of running down this country, we should be proud of Sunday as we know it and should treasure it. As leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, I have met many people from abroad who speak wistfully and enviously of the English Sunday. It is a time of relative peace and calm. It is a family day. It is a day for visiting friends and relatives. It is a time when millions of people take to the countryside, parks and open spaces to refresh body and soul. Despite the many people who already work on Sunday—in addition to the clergy—Sunday remains for

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the community as a whole a distinct day, which brings unique opportunities and pleasures. For millions, it is still a special day for worship and meditation. For millions more, it is a day when dimensions of life can be nurtured which otherwise might be crowded out. These are values of which noble Lords have been doughty champions over the years, not least in recent debates in this Chamber. I hope that that tradition will continue today.
Many people look to the Churches to give a lead on moral and spiritual matters. Indeed, some want us to promote some of the Ten Commandments very strongly, while conveniently forgetting the one about keeping the sabbath holy. But I should like to remind the House that the leaders of all the Christian denominations, as well as successive Chief Rabbis, believe that further damage to the character of our Sunday would be contrary to our Maker's instructions. It would be a move away from a pattern of living in which we believe we are most likely to fulfil our nature and God's purpose for us. It would also signal a further retreat from the Christian character of our nation.
I believe that market forces are excellent servants but bad masters. Freedom of choice is a great blessing but only up to the point where people make mutually conflicting choices. At that point arbitration is required. The consequences of today's vote are serious. It will affect the character of our first day of the week: people cannot choose to enjoy peace and quiet where others choose to be noisy. It will affect family life: people cannot choose to be with their families if half the family is at work. People will not in reality be able to choose not to work on Sunday if it gradually becomes the norm to do so. It will have complicated effects on different shops and businesses: big ones cannot choose to remain closed if commercial competition is unleashed which forces them to open. And some small ones cannot choose to stay open if they are driven out of business. Above all, individuals cannot choose to keep the overall character of Sunday special any more than they can choose to keep the national parks and green belts special. They need the support of legislation to arbitrate between incompatible individual choices in the wider public interest.
It has been argued that we can have our cake and eat it; that we can largely or completely scrap regulation and yet keep our distinctive Sunday as well. I cannot believe that that is true in the long term. Substantial deregulation would be irrevocable as changed habits, expectations and conventions take hold of successive generations and are reinforced by economic pressures. We create a momentum of which the logical outcome is a homogeneous day like all the rest. It would not happen everywhere evenly arid at the same speed, but in my view that is where ever-intensifying competitive commercial pressures will push us.
I suggest that we decide not to be pushed. I believe that this House is in a good position to think long term, partly because so many of us have been around for a long time! In this matter, as in so many others where your Lordships have exercised a benign influence, such as our approach to the environment or medical ethics, we have to think of the long-term consequences on our
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grandchildren's grandchildren. I suggest and make this plea that for their sake we should not throw away the underpinnings of Sunday as a distinct day in the life of our people. A free-for-all is not always the same thing as the common good, especially in the long term. I hope that your Lordships will decide to recommend a measure of continuing restraint sufficient to safeguard the special opportunities and blessings of a different day of the week.
3.30 p.m.
Lord Ashbourne: I was in the South Atlantic attending to what I nearly called my operational or military duties—they were actually parliamentary duties—when your Lordships gave this Bill a Second Reading, and therefore this is the first opportunity I have had to make a contribution to your Lordships' deliberations. I wish to make only three points and I shall be brief.
First, when Sunday trading was considered in another place, the Deregulation and Contracting Out Bill allowing shops to open without prescription from Monday to Saturday had not been published. It is for your Lordships to decide in this matter, but it seems to me that if shops can open at one minute past midnight on a Monday morning and remain open till one minute before midnight on a Saturday evening, continuously, it may be felt that there is little requirement for shops to open also on Sundays. However, that is for your Lordships to decide.
It is worth noting also that in America, where there is no regulation, 36 per cent. of the shops never close; that is to say, they are open on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and so forth. I need not go on. That is the pattern and that is the fact. Therefore, whatever retailers say today in this country it is possible —dare I say likely?—that they will be open continuously after the Deregulation and Contracting Out Bill is on the statute book.
Secondly, I am concerned that the Bill contains inadequate employment protection safeguards. For instance, it does not prevent a new employee being offered a contract requiring work on Sunday. Thirdly, it disturbs me to see that each of the options being offered by the Government to Parliament is contrary to the fourth commandment. Perhaps I may remind your Lordships that the fourth commandment reads:
"Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labour, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord Your God; in it you shall not do any work… For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it".
In the circumstances I find myself in something of a dilemma. But on balance I recommend that your Lordships support the least offensive and the most restrictive option; namely, to keep Sunday special and retain the Shops Act reform proposal.
In conclusion, from every point of view one day set apart for rest and worship is best for man physically, mentally and spiritually. The Creator God, who made man in His own image, certainly had man's welfare at heart when, from the beginning of creation, he instituted

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the weekly sabbath. The fourth commandment underlines its importance. We ignore the sabbath at our peril. We keep it to our inestimable benefit. The verse of Sir Matthew Hale, a former Lord Chief Justice, remains even more true today than when first written. He said:
"A Sabbath well spent brings a week of content
And health for the toils of tomorrow;
But a Sabbath profaned, whate'er may be gained,
Is a certain forerunner of sorrow".
Viscount Ullswater: It may be for the convenience of the Committee that we take the Statement now. I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

European Union: Qualified Majority Voting
3.37 p.m.
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, with the leave of the House I shall now repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister on enlargement, qualified majority voting. The Statement is as follows:
"With permission, Madam Speaker, I shall make a Statement on proposals to adjust qualified majority voting in the context of the European Union's enlargement negotiations. In these negotiations, the Government had two principal objectives:
"First, we wished to see the negotiations succeed, so long as the terms were acceptable. We have been strong and consistent supporters of enlargement. We look forward to welcoming Austria, Finland, Norway and Sweden at the beginning of 1995, should their peoples and their parliaments so decide.
"On enlargement, it is necessary to amend Article 148 of the Treaty. Without a change the blocking minority would automatically rise to 37 votes. Our second objective was to safeguard the rights of minorities in the period between enlargement and the 1996 Inter-Governmental Conference; and to seek a fundamental review of qualified majority voting at that conference.
"We believed that there should not be an unqualified, mathematical extension of the blocking minority to 27. We were concerned that successive, unqualified extensions had weakened the democratic legitimacy of the Community.
"A large part of our concern stemmed from the handling by the European Commission of social measures. Article 118A of the treaty, which provides for health and safety at work, had been used as a vehicle for the adoption by qualified majority voting of measures affecting social affairs and employment. In addition, a proposal had recently been made to count the employees of multi-national companies in the United Kingdom towards the threshold of the Works Council Directive—although this measure had been brought forward under the Social Chapter, to which the United Kingdom is not a party.
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"My right honourable friend said yesterday that we were pursuing our concerns about the social affairs measures. I can now inform the House that we have received assurances from the Commission that it will not bring forward any further proposals under the health and safety articles under its term of office except for measures directly and demonstrably relevant to health and safety at work. This means that we shall not face a repetition from this Commission of our experience over the Working Time Directive, which we are challenging in the European Court of Justice; or over the Young Persons Directive, which is in dispute between the Council and the European Parliament. The Commission has also agreed now that proposals under the Social Chapter will not embrace people or organisations in the United Kingdom. For the purposes of the Social Chapter, the United Kingdom will be entirely excluded from legislation. This meets a particular concern we had with the works council proposal which the other 11 member states are pursuing.
"The proposal on qualified majority voting negotiated by my right honourable friend at the weekend meets many, though not all, of the Government's concerns. We have secured agreement that the review of qualified majority voting at the next inter-governmental conference will now include the question of thresholds. These will be reopened and re-examined—as will the number of votes attributed to each member country. This means, as my right honourable friend said yesterday, that there will be a root and branch review of the system. This will have to take a fundamental look at the democratic legitimacy of decision-making. At the request of the United Kingdom and Spain, the transitional arrangements from accession until 1996 will no longer provide for unqualified extension of the blocking minority to 27. The Council is under a legal and binding obligation to seek agreement on the basis of a minority of at least 23 votes. My right honourable friend ensured that there would be no time limit for the fulfilment of this obligation. The Commission and the Presidency are required to take "any initiative necessary" to reach a solution adopted by at least 68 votes—that is, with no more than 22 votes against.
"This obligation is justiciable in the European Court of Justice. We expect it to be upheld scrupulously. Should there be any question of a breach of the obligation, we would reserve the right to take whatever action was necessary; and a number of avenues would be open to us. The first would be a legal challenge; and the second would be use of the Luxembourg Compromise.
"The binding nature of the obligation is clearly understood by our partners, and stems from the form of the Council's decision. For example, Germany has said today that it regards the obligation as binding on the Council and has no doubt that other member states of the Union will also fully respect these procedures.
"On this basis, the Cabinet has concluded that our objectives on enlargement and on qualified majority

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voting have been sufficiently achieved. We are informing the Presidency that, provided the concessions made to the United Kingdom and Spain are accepted without qualification by all other member states, the United Kingdom can accept the proposal.
"Enlargement will bring into the Union countries which share Britain's open trading instincts; and which will be net contributors to the Budget. It will be another large step towards the wider, less centralised, open trading Europe for which we are working."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
3.44 p.m.
Lord Richard: My Lords, I am obliged to the Leader of the House for repeating the Statement made by his right honourable friend the Prime Minister in another place.
Let us be clear about where we are in this whole affair. The position now is that the blocking mechanism—the minority between now and 1996—will at the end of the day be 27, not 23. But everyone, particularly the Commission and the Council, will try to seek agreement on the basis of 23. If they cannot get it, they will adjourn for a reasonable time to see whether they can. I make one observation only on that. Anyone who has been involved with the affairs of the Commission and the Council of Ministers will know that the Commission and the Council will strive very hard indeed to avoid taking a decision other than by unanimity. For the Government now to dress up this rather neat proposal that people will try to get agreement on 23, as if it were a great victory is, frankly, a distortion of language.
Yesterday I described this affair as a sorry mess, and so it is. I shall not reiterate what I said yesterday but I note again that the Government are once more trying to mislead people about the effect of what they have negotiated or have received from the Commission. Even at this stage they are not prepared to accept their full responsibility.
In the Financial Times this morning there was reference to a written commitment from M. Delors, the President of the Commission. I do not believe that there has been such a written commitment. If there has been, I should be grateful if the leader of the House could tell us where the letter is. There is not one. The noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, need not look too hard because I spoke to the Commission shortly before the House sat this afternoon. There is no such letter.
The Government apparently asked for three commitments from the Commission; each, frankly, more illusory than the last. On health and safety and the use of Article 118A, they were told to look at the work programme. If your Lordships will allow me to translate from the French—it may not be entirely accurate but I think I can get the gist of it:
"In the course of their contacts with the representatives of the British Government the President of the Commission and the commissioner responsible for social affairs have stated orally that the propositions under Article 118A which figure at the moment in the Commission's work programme for 1994 concern only health and safety".
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In other words, the Government were told to look at the work programme. There is no new assurance in that, my Lords.
Secondly, the Government asked for an assurance on the coverage of the social protocol. They were told:
"The Commission considers that from the legal point of view the social protocol applies according to the principle of territoriality".
There is nothing new in that. It has been there ever since the treaty was negotiated.
Thirdly, they raised—and the Prime Minister did riot even see fit to mention this one—a somewhat more esoteric point on objectives 3 and 4 of the social fund concerning the UK's ability to decide the percentage allocation between those two objectives. There is nothing new in that.
Nothing new has come from the Commission in the past 24 hours which entitles the Government now to say that they should be taking a different view from the one they could have taken a week or 10 days ago. None of this is anything to do with enlargement or anything to do with majority voting. So what do we have in reality? This has been an absurd, damaging and humiliating episode. I do not mind if it damages the Government alone. They have shot themselves in the foot so often that it now almost amounts to knee-capping. But I do mind when it damages the country; and I do mind when it damages relations with our partners and the standing of this country in the world. Frankly, they have made us a laughing stock in Europe. And I do mind about that.
The Government started this unnecessary and divisive row. No one else started it. They persisted in it against the advice of the Foreign Office arid, it now seems, the Foreign Secretary himself. Last week they talked it up as if the issue were the most fundamental of all British interests; and today when, as was inevitable, they had to retreat, they seek to claim that it is all right anyway because we have fresh assurances from the Commission, which on my information is totally false.
Why have we gone through all this? It has nothing to do with Europe or with the enlargement of the Community, but to try to preserve a semblance of unity in the ranks of the party opposite. The Daily Telegraph summed it up rather well this morning. It is not an organ which I normally quote. It said:
"Derision seems the only possible response to a David who announces an engagement with Goliath, marches armed to the encounter, and then returns with unbloodied sling to explain that after a quiet word Goliath agreed to behave more reasonably in future".
What a judgment on the way in which this Government are conducting the nation's affairs! It has been a sorely damaging episode. The Government should stop pretending and at least show some regret at the folly of their actions.
Lord Jenkins of Hillhead: My Lords, this morning's decision by the Cabinet is a great deal better than the reverse. The Government's performance over the past three weeks remains incomprehensible. But I shall not dwell on that for a second day running. I make only three relatively brief points. I beg the Government not to try to present the defeat as a triumph. The submissive acceptance of retreat is sometimes necessary, although sympathy is less if the battle itself

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was totally uncalled for. But it is the waving of a piece of paper after defeat which sticks in the gullet. I pray for the Government not to do that.
I also beg the Government not to pretend that we have secured a blocking majority of 23. We have got 27 with a little cosmetic patch. To pretend otherwise yesterday even strained the great respect in which the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, is held in this House. I was much struck yesterday by the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, when he said that we should look to the future and not to the past. But to do that effectively the British Government must try to learn something from this fiasco, for that it most certainly is.
The most important fact is that whether the blocking minority be 23 or 27, it is of no value to us unless we have allies in Europe who wish to be allied with us. Our own vote is 10. Let the blocking minority be what it is, that figure can never be achieved alone. What we have done is to ensure that people are deeply suspicious of being allied with us. The Spaniards have been waiting to jump ship for the past two weeks and they did so. Why are we so unsuccessful in getting allies in Europe? It is perfectly true, as it is sometimes argued, that other countries can sometimes play a national, even a selfish, hand, but they manage to do so in a way which secures for them more support. That is the central question. Out of this fiasco I beg the Government to try to learn something for the future, otherwise there can be no Statement more hollow than that of the noble Baroness yesterday, and that as a result we shall approach the 1996 renegotiations from a more favourable threshold. We shall do the reverse unless we learn the lessons of these terrible three weeks.
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, first I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, that I am not in the least bit surprised to find that he seeks to belittle the achievement of the Government, because the Labour Party would have signed up for a higher minority vote without securing any safeguards whatsoever. That they should therefore try to run down the safeguards that we have achieved does not surprise me in the slightest. It is clear from the Statement that the safeguards are not as good as we wanted originally, but they are still very substantial indeed.
Of course the blocking minority will increase to 27, but the process before that figure can be used is very substantial indeed. It will apply until the treaty amendments following the 1996 IGC enter into force. Where there is a minority of 23 or up to 26 votes opposing a decision, it will be binding. That means that it will be legally binding and there will be an obligation on the presidency, with the assistance of the Commission, to take the initiative to facilitate a wider basis of agreement within the Council. The Council will do all within its means to reach a satisfactory solution within a reasonable time which can be adopted with at least 68 votes with a blocking minority of 23. What is a reasonable time will depend on the circumstances, but it will be a reasonable time in order to discharge the
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obligation to facilitate a wider basis of agreement within the Council. I believe that that is a significant and important safeguard.
Some noble Lords seem to be confused about the figure of 37 which I used in the Statement. I shall try to explain. The qualified majority in the present treaty—that is to say, for the present 12 member states, is 54. If there were no decision on the qualified majority after enlargement the figure of 54 would remain unchanged, but the total number of votes after enlargement would rise from 76 for the present 12 to 90 for the 16. So the blocking minority would be 90 minus 54. For those who cannot do mental arithmetic, that is 37.
Noble Lords: It is 36!
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, one of the first pieces of advice which I was given many years ago when I was a chartered accountant was never to do mental arithmetic in the witness box. Noble Lords are quite right; it is 36 plus 1. But that is how the figure of 37 arises and it is a real figure.
The noble Lord cast some doubt on the announcements which we made about the social legislation. That is separate but very much related to the issue of qualified majority negotiations. The United Kingdom has been concerned by the Commission's attempts to undermine the opt out from the Social Chapter obtained at Maastricht. I can understand again why the noble Lord does not believe that that is a great advantage because he was in favour of signing up to that legislation. But we on this side of the House and the Government believe that that would have been a very bad step for us to have agreed to.
Assurances have now been obtained from the Commission which are very reassuring. Only two new items of legislation planned under the national health and safety provisions supported by the United Kingdom on mine and equipment safety will be pursued. The noble Lord also said that the Council always tried for unanimity and therefore qualified majority voting is not important and that we cannot claim a victory. That is not true.
Qualified majority voting is increasingly used in the Council in the annual budget and under the health and safety regulations under Article 118A. So I believe that this agreement is a very good one in the circumstances. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, said that it was a great deal better than the reverse. But I have to say to him that the Liberal Party would seek to abolish the national veto, as I understand it. So the Liberal Party would seek to remove the protection of the blocking minority also, and we would have majority voting on all issues in the Community. In these negotiations, I believe that the Government have substantially achieved their objectives. Those objectives were, first, to achieve a successful enlargement. That has been achieved. The second objective was to provide adequate protection for minorities. We believe that we have achieved that.
4 p.m.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that very few Members of your Lordships' House will regard what he has said as an unqualified

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victory for the Government? Many of us feel that that would be stretching the truth much too far. Is the noble Lord aware that some 50 years ago many of us in this House were assembling on this side of the Channel with our American colleagues to liberate the various countries of Europe which are now part of the 12? Is the noble Lord further aware that very few of us at that time ever thought that we in this country would be presented with an ultimatum expiring in 48 hours and that we would come out of it waving a white flag?
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition felt that that contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, which is characteristic of him and of the views that he holds very sincerely, was also in line with the policy of his party, which, of course, it is not. I believe that the agreement was a very important agreement, enabling not only progress to a stronger European Union, but also to an open market trading organisation by the accession of those countries. I believe that to be correct. Many of us—certainly on this side of the House—have believed that the main justification for stronger links in Western Europe has been to avoid the sort of disasters to which the noble Lord referred, which have occurred twice in the lifetime of a number of Members of your Lordships' House.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that even to those of us who have indulged in a slight, but possibly frequent, kicking over of the traces, his announcement has done the authority of the present Administration no good whatever? In effect, it said that it is in the essential national interest that the blocking minority should stay at 27. That may or may not be the case, but, in effect, the announcement said that the essential blocking minority can now be reduced to 23. The announcement has produced a legalistic figleaf the size of a microdot to cover its nakedness. It makes it extremely difficult for those of us who really wish Her Majesty's advisers well not to be very depressed by what we have just heard—least of all because it makes former commissioners of the European Community extremely smug, arid that is very irritating.
Noble Lords: Oh!
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, I share the less than 100 per cent. enthusiasm for the last part of my noble friend's contribution. Indeed, I do not accept the basis of his question at all. The Government's first objective was to achieve enlargement. I believe that most Members of your Lordships' House believe that to be the right policy. The second objective was, at the same time as achieving enlargement, to protect minority opinion within the Community. If the straight proposal on a numbers basis had happened as in the previous enlargement, the blocking minority would have been a straight 27. We have agreed with our Community partners a very significant improvement on that situation which is of benefit not only to us, but also to other countries within the Community because we believe that, as the Community grows, so the democratic problems will require better arrangements for minorities. That will be even more so in the IGC in 1996. There
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is recognition throughout the Community that those negotiations will be extremely important because the. arrangements for a Community of 12 are not appropriate: for a Community of 16—and certainly not for a Community of 20.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that many of us have some sympathy with him in that this afternoon he has had to come to the. Dispatch Box to defend the indefensible? I do not intend to attack the Government this afternoon because I want answers to three questions. First, are we going to have the assurances from the Commission in writing, because it is clear from what my noble friend said from the Front: Bench that we have not yet received those assurances in writing? Can the noble Lord assure me that we will have those assurances in writing in due course? Secondly, the noble Lord referred to "this Commission". Does that mean that the assurances are only short term and temporary and will be set aside by a future Commission? Thirdly, please could the noble Lord try to tell us what our position will be in future negotiations when our partners know perfectly well that when we take a position at the beginning, a few threats and some bullying from them will make us change our mind within a few days and certainly in no less a period than a fortnight?
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, the noble Lord asked me three questions. I have no information as to whether or not the undertakings that were given by M. Delors were in writing, will be writing or were given over the telephone. However, I find very surprising any suggestion that M. Delors will not stick to an agreement that he has entered into, especially when it comes from a fellow Socialist. I have no doubt whatever that received assurances from M. Delors on this particular point are perfectly satisfactory. I think that they are right. M. Delors' undertaking was for the lifetime of this Commission. A new Commission will have to consider these matters afresh. However, I have every reason to believe that the undertakings that have been entered into by this Commission will be taken seriously by a new one. As far as our partners are concerned, I think that what has emerged from these discussions is that, as I said earlier, it is now accepted by all member countries of the European Union that we cannot move from a Community of 12 to a Community of 20 without considering the safeguards of minorities. I do not know what will be the outcome of negotiations which will not even start until 1996, but I have every reason to think that the basis upon which they will start will be satisfactory. I believe that I spoke earlier about "successful enlargement". I meant "successful negotiations". The enlargement is subject to ratification by the peoples and parliaments of all the countries concerned.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, I take the same view as my noble friend Lord Richard in his condemnation of the way in which the Government have handled this matter. I should like to put one specific question. In the Statement which the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker of Wallasey, read yesterday, which was repeated by the noble Lord when making his presentation today,

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appeared the phrase, "This is a legally binding decision of the Council", as if somehow or other it was different from any other decision of the Council. Like many other noble Lords, I have taken the opportunity of reading the text of the declaration of the 12 present member states of the European Union which was made in their statement yesterday. I can find nothing that implies that there will be some new legally binding document, which I suppose must mean a new treaty. Will the Leader of the House explain what that term really means? I fear that it is just a piece of gobbledegook.
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, the noble Lord asked for an explanation. The explanation is blindingly simple. The member states have agreed that this decision will be legally binding, which means that if any nation is aggrieved by it, these matters can be taken to the European Court of Justice and are justiciable in that sense.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that many of us feel that a great advance has been effected by securing the four additional members of the Community? All four are admirably run countries which will undoubtedly exercise a very good influence on the operation of the Community as a whole. Is he further aware that to have achieved that with minimal reduction in the safeguards looked for appears to many of us like a very considerable achievement on which the Prime Minister should be congratulated?
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend. He puts it better than I can.
Lord Desai: My Lords, perhaps I may ask the noble Lord three questions. First, is it not true that the number is not 27 but 30 per cent. of the total votes, because if one of the countries was not to join, the number of votes necessary for a blocking minority would be adjusted to 30 per cent? The principle of 30 per cent. has been accepted and retained. There is no change in that. Secondly, perhaps I may ask him about the delay that a blocking minority of 23 can win. Is it not true that another country may, at any time, reopen the issue, and by a simple majority overrule whatever is going on? So a blocking minority of 23 cannot indefinitely stop something from going through. It is just a variable delay depending upon how many enemies one has created. Lastly, has any one of the four new partners who are about to join asked for derogation from the Social Chapter?
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, I am not informed on the last question. I do not know; but I shall find out and write to the noble Lord. To my own embarrassment and expense, I have already bandied numbers about earlier in this exchange. As I understand it, the 30 per cent. is nowhere in the legislation. The minority blocking vote has been around 30 per cent., but in the legislation it has always been expressed as the number of votes necessary to achieve a majority. That is what it is. It was 54. It will now increase so that the blocking minority will be 27, but with the procedures that have been agreed.
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The noble Lord asked what would happen if some country decided to seek to change those arrangements. Of course I believe that it would be possible to change these procedures by a simple majority, although I am not an expert in that particular matter. What is clear is that in those circumstances the Luxembourg Compromise, which exists in the background, is still available to us and can be used. Of course no one wants to use the Luxembourg Compromise unless it is necessary. That has not been changed. Indeed, its authority has been enhanced as a result of the negotiations, because Spain has also indicated that in certain circumstances it too would not hesitate to use the Luxembourg Compromise.
Lord Wyatt of Weeford: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the Commissioner in charge of health and safety in Brussels has already said on the wireless that he is not going to take the blindest bit of notice of any undertaking not to link hours of work with health and safety?
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, I have not had my noble friend's advantage of listening to the Commissioner on the radio. All I know is that M. Delors has indicated that this Commission has no proposals to pursue any health and safety matters other than the two items that we have indicated that we approve of relating to mine safety and equipment safety. I have now been informed that none of the applicants has asked for a derogation from the Social Chapter.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, it seems to me that the noble Lord the Leader of the House did not deal adequately with an important point raised by my noble friend Lord Jenkins of Hillhead when he suggested that in the future, instead of becoming involved once again in these arcane and complex matters of numbers and voting, we should concentrate on building up allies within the Community, and that we should work to try to persuade people that our views, which we happen to feel are in our own interests, would also be in their interests, so that when this matter arises again we should have a much stronger following than we had apparently on this occasion.
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that we should seek to build up allies and strengthen our position within the Community. I believe that in the past few years we have made a significant improvement in those relationships. I do not believe, for example, that we could have had a successful negotiation at Maastricht had it not been for the warm and constructive way in which my right honourable friend the Prime Minister conducted those negotiations which I believe were very much to Britain's benefit.
Lord Bonham-Carter: My Lords, how was it then that we found ourselves in a minority of one in the recent negotiations?
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, the answer to that is that we were not in a minority of one; we were in a minority of two—and two very important countries. That comes ill from the Liberals who would give up all national vetos in these matters.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, would it not have been easier to have won friends after Maastricht if, instead of coming out of the negotiations shouting, "Game, set and match", the Prime Minister had come out saying how understanding his friends had been in the other countries of Europe?
Lord Wakeham: My Lords, I am perfectly happy to say how understanding everyone, including the British Government, has been in this matter.

Sunday Trading Bill
4.16 p.m.
House again in Committee on Clause 1 and Schedule 1.
Viscount Tonypandy: This is a major occasion in the life of this place. We are not deciding a small matter today, but one of considerable importance. When I listened to the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury speaking on behalf of the Church of this land, I was deeply moved because the question of having one day set apart from all the rest does, as the most reverend Primate indicated, go right back to the Ten Commandments. Throughout history, in each land, people have sought a day upon which to respect their faith. The Moslems, how seriously they take their faith and how they honour it. We respect those who honour their faith. So this applies to other faiths.
This is a Christian land. I listened to the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, and he reduced this major issue to trivia: whether one could buy nappies on a Sunday. We are considering how this country will go in the future. These are days when iconoclasts are busy tearing down values that our fathers have respected. I know that the world is always changing; but at present we are in danger of digging up the very foundations upon which we have established the type of society that we have in this land. Inconsistencies about Sunday! Of course there are inconsistencies; but similar inconsistencies arise out of almost every piece of legislation that comes through this place.
I listened with deep gratitude to the clear way in which the Minister outlined the options before us; but he did not make a recommendation on behalf of the Government. I want to say only that everyone who loves this country must be anxious about falling standards. Everyone who is proud to belong to these islands must feel uneasy about events and developments that are taking place. Sunday is a symbol that we have a faith. It is one of the remaining symbols that we are a people with obligations to God Almighty.
I know that there have been 29 debates in another place and here. I have taken part in every one of them. The noble Lord warned us not to repeat ourselves. I hope that he will not mind me saying in his presence that it was a bit neat of him to tell us not to repeat what we have said previously and then to proceed to do that very thing himself. However, that is by the way. Having listened to him, I realise how hostile he is to the whole idea of us keeping Sunday special as a different day.
Are we in this House to give a signal to the rest of the nation that what we believe does not matter any more?
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What we believe makes us what we are. Our faith is a measurement of the kind of people we are arid the values, that guide our society. If we support the present proposal, which amounts to total deregulation—.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: No, no.
Viscount Tonypandy: Yes, it does. The: people who have been breaking the law for ages will be allowed to open for six hours. Now we are to reward them by making their illegal conduct legal. If we give a signal to the nation that Sunday does not count any more, we shall make it all the harder for those who are struggling to train our young to have the right values.
I hear a noble Lord speaking; as a rule I am not put off but perhaps it is my age. I too have received many letters. I grew up in a believing home and that made all the difference to me. I do not hide from the Committee the fact that we were a poor family. We did not have money but we had love and values. That all sprang from the New Testament and from the Christian belief of my mother. Therefore, when I receive letters from people outside begging me to vote today to protect Sunday, of course I am moved.
One of our major London retailers, who has kept his shop closed on Sundays, has written to me. His concluding paragraph reads:
"It must be remembered that this matter was brought to the fore by the activities of those companies who in the last couple of years have committed criminal offences week after week by opening on Sundays".
There is no great public demand. It is no good Members of the Committee saying that there is a public uprising to have shops open on Sundays. It is not true. I am as much in touch with public opinion, at least in the part of the world where I live, and I move around a fair amount. People are not clamouring to change the situation; in fact, they enjoy the weekends. It is an occasion for the family, whether or not they go to worship. People like the chance of a day for fellowship and they like it to be different from every other day.
I resume my seat with these words, which I repeat from a previous debate. It was not the Second Reading because I was in the sunshine on that day. I remember saying previously in this Chamber that on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, with a Government who are proposing to deregulate hours, the shops can be open until all hours. Why should we spoil the one big remaining symbol of the faith in which we have put our trust?
I support the Keep Sunday Special Campaign. I did not need the noble Lord's advice; I shall keep Sunday special. I have been nurtured that way arid so have more than 5 million people who every Sunday make their way to the churches of this land. This House has an opportunity to ask another place to think again—that is all—and to send the Bill back. The provision was passed with a narrow majority—just 18 votes—and it will change everything. The Minister said, "We want to come to a decision". We have come to a decision 29 times. Of course, the final decision will be when shops are open every day and after that Ministers will consider

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the matter closed. I hope and pray that the Committee will make it 30 times and will hold on to what our fathers gave to us.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: Perhaps I may make a slightly different point from that which we have heard. I keep Sunday special and I shall continue to keep Sunday special. I am a Christian and I shall remain a Christian whatever the result of the debate. I was a little surprised to hear the most reverend Primate say that it was our English Sunday of which he was so proud.
I receive letters as well as the noble Viscount, Lord Tonypandy. I have received a letter about this matter from someone in Glasgow. It was written by a pious Christian who asked what I thought about the desecration of the Lord's day and whether he could quote me. I said, "I think two things. The first is that it does not apply to Scotland. The second is that if I were asked which was the most sabbatarian country in Europe I should certainly say that it was Scotland". I draw from that the conclusion that the keeping of Sunday special has more to do with conscience and popular culture than with the secular law of this land. We in England, to whom the Bill alone applies, ought to have a little respect for our companions across the Border, who have no effective sabbatarian legislation but who keep Sunday a great deal more special than we do.
Lord Murray of Epping Forest: I understand the arguments of those who seek total deregulation; for instance, my noble friend Lord McIntosh. However, I find it difficult to understand that, in the name of consumer choice, which has been bandied about in this debate, a small group of superstores—which, if one looks at the shopping centre in my small town, have done more than anyone to wreck consumer choice—are seeking to elevate the debate to a level of moral imperative and to persuade us to go down their particular road.
I am less interested in considering consumer choice as in reflecting on the position of minority groups which will be affected by the decision. I refer to those who live near shops and whose life will be made hideous on this seventh day of the week, those who try to run small shops and churchgoers who seek to keep churches open so that those who never go to church can do so when they want their babies baptised, to be married or to be buried. Of course, shopkeepers are still a minority group.
I wish to address my remarks particularly to the question of shopworkers. We are told that it will be all right and that we should not bother because they will be well protected by the legislation. The Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers has announced that the Shopping Hours Reform Council employers are prepared to go even further. The Bill provides certain protections for existing shopworkers and for those who become employed by that industry.
As no doubt most noble Lords have done, I have had a look at the provisions of the Bill and the undertakings. My advice to shopworkers is that they should think very
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carefully and look that particular horse closely in the mouth. I agree with Dr. Deakin, fellow of Peterhouse, at the University of Cambridge, and Professor Ewing, Professor of Public Law at the University of London, that any employee who relies on the provisions of the Bill is likely to be very disappointed. They point out that there is no obligation whatever on an employer to consult the staff or their union about whether or not to open or close on a Sunday, and that employers can pay opting-out employees on a differentially lower basis, if they wish to do so. They point out that the sanctions available to a victimised employee are inadequate in terms of the complexity of putting a case before an industrial tribunal and the onus being upon an employee to prove that the reason for his dismissal or detrimental treatment was his refusal to work on a Sunday.
It does not stop there. An employer can get rid of his obligations by buying out the employee. That is quite legal under the Bill. There are many ways in which an unscrupulous employer—of which this industry is full —can evade the provisions of the Bill. He can just sack the employee and take the consequences. Even if the employee goes to a tribunal and wins the case, he will receive minimal compensation. His chances of reinstatement are one in a hundred. Who would want to be reinstated in a shop owned by such an employer? Meanwhile, the rest of the staff will have seen what happens, and at minimal cost the employer will have created apprehension among his staff. If anyone doubts that scenario let him consider the case of Mr. Phillips, a supervisor in the Byrite chain. Last year he was given one hour to sign a contract that made Sunday a normal working day. Mr. Phillips was advised that he should reconsider his future in retailing if he refused to sign.
It is worth emphasising that the Bill and its so-called protections apply only to shopworkers and not to all the other groups of workers who will inevitably be affected by shops opening on Sundays. I refer to the police, refuse collectors, traffic wardens and maintenance workers. The list is inexhaustible.
It is not surprising that USDAW has been disappointed by the failure of the House of Commons to adopt amendments to improve the Bill. But they tell us that they have received certain undertakings from a group of employers about the continuation of premium rates of pay to Sunday employees, undertakings about the requirement on employees to give only one month's notice to opt out and undertakings in relation to the treatment of employees who exercise their right to opt out of working on Sundays.
I ask noble Lords to look at the limited nature of those undertakings. First, this is not a signed agreement with the union but a unilateral declaration of intent by a group of employers. Secondly, the undertakings do not embody the guaranteed double time that USDAW has demanded. There is no guarantee of the continued payment of premium rates. The employers say that they
"will only deviate from this"—
i.e., the payment of premium rates—
"if there is a significant change in the circumstances in which retail work is rewarded".
That gives the employers a unilateral right to terminate premium payments. They will do it merely "after

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appropriate consultation", not by agreement with the union. Thirdly, if an employee exercises his or her right to opt out after giving notice the employer will,
"use his/her best endeavour to reschedule the employee's lost working hours elsewhere, subject to the needs of the business".
The expressions "best endeavour" and "subject to the needs of the business" are hardly copper-bottomed undertakings; they are more like a colander. Fourthly, these undertakings relate only to a minority of employees—those who work in shops—and not at all to employees in related occupations outside retailing. As far as I can gather, they do not even apply to supervisors or managers who work in shops.
I have no doubt whatever that those employers are honourable men. Indeed, they have very honestly put their reservations on the face of the declaration. Equally, I have no doubt that the deputy general secretary of USDAW is an honourable man who has done the best for his members in obtaining those undertakings. In his public statements he has put the best possible gloss on them that he can, and I do not criticise him for that. Many of us have had to do the same, even when the best that we can achieve is not terribly good. I am sure that the undertakings are better than nothing but I do not believe that they go very far. Certainly, they do not go further than the minority of employers who make up the Shopping Hours Reform Council. Less scrupulous employers in the industry will be laughing. Say's law will work here like everywhere else. The bad currency drives out the good. I used to think of that as Sainsbury's law in the days when Sainsbury's, under the leadership of the noble Lord Lord Sainsbury, was in the lead in the defence of wages councils. Where were the other members of the Shopping Hours Reform Council then? What will be the status of these undertakings when the heat is put on them by unscrupulous employers in the industry? One union of all the unions has secured this declaration of intent. However, other unions and their members will most certainly be affected.
I conclude by reminding those of your Lordships who may he considering attaching more importance to these undertakings than they warrant that one of the main purposes of the 1950 Act—and the main concerns of your Lordships when the last Bill was thrown out—was the protection of employees in the industry. That is not the only reason, or perhaps not the main reason, for resisting the proposals that have been put forward by the handful of major shopping chains represented on the Shopping Hours Reform Council. But the interests of shopworkers and other workers can best be protected by rejecting this essay in deregulation and voting to keep Sunday still special.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: Perhaps I may ask a question of my noble friend before he sits down. Does he agree with me that, although USDAW has rightly been unhappy with some of the provisions for the protection of shopworkers made in another place, and they and, I hope, he and I will support amendments in this House to strengthen shopworker protection, nonetheless that union has recommended to Members of your Lordships' House that they vote for the six-hour option as it stands?
Lord Murray of Epping Forest: What my noble friend says is absolutely true. On the other hand, UNISON—the second biggest union in the country, which is concerned about the knock-on effect on its members —firmly recommends that your Lordships support keeping Sunday special.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: I differ from the noble Viscount, Lord Tonypandy, always with unwillingness and diffidence. As Members of the Committee heard, he is not only a most eloquent speaker but, if he will allow me to say so to his face, he is also a very good man and one who is an example to us all. However, with respect, in the course of his very eloquent speech he really exaggerated the issue a great deal. The noble Viscount seemed to suggest that to allow Sunday opening of shops would be to go back on some of the major elements in the Christian faith. Speaking also as a Christian—and, indeed, in a much humbler way as a churchwarden—I really cannot accept that that is so.
As Members of the Committee know, shops are in an all but unique position. Almost every other activity is permitted on Sunday. It is virtually only in the retail trade where it is a criminal offence to open a shop except: with certain statutory and rather complicated exceptions. For the rest, you can, for example, open an office and there are people who work in continuous process industries. In passing, I should point out that I was one-time chairman of a cement making firm which is a continuous process industry. The only problem I had was with workers who were aggrieved that they were not nominated for Sunday work (which was paid at 50 per cent. above the week-day rate) and who sometimes demanded of the chairman that he should see to it that the foreman did not victimise them by depriving them of Sunday work.
If noble Lords look around them they will see a great many activities taking place on Sundays; for example, as regards transport and government services. Indeed, many millions of people now work regularly on Sundays. If the noble Viscount is right and the opening of some shops on Sunday would really be a departure from the principles of the Christian faith I can only say to him that we have already travelled a long way from that position.
We are concerned with the not unimportant but much more limited issue as to whether or not it should be lawful to open a shop on Sunday. The noble Lord opposite dealt with very important issues on trade union representation and relations. If Sunday shopping is established, it is obviously right that proper agreements should be made in respect of those called upon to work in those shops. But, again, that is only a comparatively small section of a society in which many millions of people already work on Sundays. Moreover, many millions also enjoy the opportunity to shop on Sundays.
As anyone can see in the shopping centres of our towns, it is increasingly the practice—especially in these days when married women work a great deal—that Sunday is the day when married couples like to go out and shop together. Unfortunately, from one point of view, they have been able to do so for quite a time as one of the sad things about the present state of the law is that

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it is not observed. I am sure that Members of the Committee will feel that for practices which are unlawful to be continued simply because no one thinks it right to enforce the law is very bad in itself but a very good argument for tidying up the legal position.
The choice before us for tidying up the whole matter is a clear one. One can adopt the view taken by the other place and go for a large measure of deregulation and the rather curious six-hour opening rule for large stores, or one can go the whole way and deregulate entirely. The strong argument against the partial deregulation approved by another place is that it imposes a very considerable burden upon local authorities which will then be expected to enforce a highly complicated law. Moreover, according to the Bill, it will involve an expenditure of about £3 million a year for enforcement and a further £600,000 to cover other aspects involved in so doing.
What is the purpose of the restriction? The only purpose that I have heard supported is that it would help the small shops, which would be allowed to open, as against the big shops, which would be restricted to six hours. In a way, that is an attractive argument because most of us have a great regard for the smaller shops which serve an extremely useful public purpose. But is it really acceptable in this day and age that, in order to benefit one economic activity, we make another economic activity a criminal offence and expect local authorities to enforce the law in that respect? I believe that that is only going half way and that the other place has only gone part of the way towards clearing up a wholly unsatisfactory position.
Several Members of the Committee referred to Scotland where the position has been wholly satisfactory for many years. As one noble Lord observed, the Scots are rather more Sabbatarian than the rest of us. Yet they carry on very happily with complete freedom to open shops. I believe that only about 21 per cent. or 22 per cent. of shops actually open. If we do away with the idea that opening a shop on Sunday is a criminal offence that shows that all shops will not automatically open; they will only open if it seems to be in their interests to do so. Rather than use the criminal law to help one section of the shopping industry as against another, I suggest that it would be sensible to clear up the matter once and for all.
The real practical problem involved is the reaction of the other place. If Members of the Committee go—as I hope they will—for total deregulation, it is quite possible that the other place may not accept that decision and may persist in its present attitude of supporting partial deregulation. Indeed, it is within the legal rights of Members of the other place so to do. However, it is surely the function of this Chamber sometimes to give Members of another place the chance to think again. No one can be sure how they would use such an opportunity. But if Members of the Committee were to accept that version of the Bill which provides for total deregulation, then at least the other place would have to face up to that judgment. They would also have to confront the question which is one that those concerned might find difficult to resolve; namely,
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whether it makes sense in this day and age to secure a certain amount of closing of shops by the use of criminal penalties and the hard work of local authorities in order either to preserve a small trace of Sabbatarianism or, perhaps, the interests of the smaller shops.
We have before us a real opportunity to put the law right; indeed, we have a real opportunity to clear up what has been a scandal. Moreover, we have the splendid example of Scotland. Speaking as one who once served in a Scottish regiment, I believe that it is a very good idea to follow the Scots.
Lord Elton: Before my noble friend sits down, I have one point to make. My noble friend sought to reassure Members of the Committee that only 22 per cent. of the shops in Scotland open under free Sunday trading. However, is he aware that in England and Wales 38 per cent. of shops already open and that if we deregulate it is estimated that the figure will rise to 65 per cent?
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: I am well aware of the fact that it is said that 38 per cent. do open on Sunday. Perhaps my noble friend will therefore realise that if his object is to prevent shops opening on Sundays, maintaining this legislation seems to me the worst possible way of doing it.
Lord Howell: I hope I shall not detain the Committee long but the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, has advanced an extraordinary proposition; namely, that if large numbers of people fail to observe the law, and indeed deliberately break the law, Parliament should then change the law to meet such illegality. That is an astonishing proposition which would take us into deep water if ever it were applied as a general principle to a whole range of social matters. I refer to drugs and other areas where large numbers of people would like us to pursue consideration of changing the law.
I am obliged to the most reverend Primate, to my noble friend Lord Tonypandy and others for drawing our attention to what this debate is really about; namely, the essential character of Sunday irrespective of whether one is Christian. Sunday has an essential characteristic in that on Sunday we must provide for the renewal of people. Those of us who are Christian in part or in whole must have an opportunity to renew our spiritual life; but we must also provide opportunities for renewal for those who are not Christian. I suggest that we should provide opportunities for renewal for the latter in the form of recreation. That is of great importance. I have not always agreed with my noble friend Lord Tonypandy regarding what opportunities we should provide for people to view sport or the arts on Sundays. However, I am glad to say that we are both playing on the same side on this occasion. It is important to retain that special feature of Sunday. As there are no absolutes in this life, we must balance what we wish to achieve with some provision to meet people's essential needs. That is why I think it is reasonable to open small shops on Sundays. There are other reasons for that which I shall discuss in a moment.

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I wish to say a few words about shopping—I suspect in advance of the speeches that will be made by some of my noble friends who are sitting behind me who have told me privately how important it is for them to be able to shop on Sunday. Their case has been totally destroyed by the introduction by this Government of Clause 17 in the Deregulation and Contracting Out Bill—the deregulation clause—which will allow shops to be open 24 hours a day, six days a week. I cannot believe there is any housewife in the country who cannot find the opportunity to do her main shopping in that six day period.
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde: Is the noble Lord seriously suggesting that women should be expected to go shopping 24 hours a day? Is he suggesting that after having done a full day at work, they should have the opportunity to visit the shops at midnight if they so wish?
Lord Howell: I am saying that the Government—presumably with the support of my honourable friends—will allow shops to be open from midnight on Sunday/Monday until midnight on Saturday/Sunday. Surely, in the whole of that time—the period we used to call the working week—most housewives will find an hour or two to do their shopping.
Lord Howie of Troon: My noble friend will recall that public houses can now be open if not for 24 hours a day, at least for a great part of the day. That is a good thing. Is he going to suggest that they should be shut on Sunday?
Lord Howell: I will not give way again as in the interests of the Committee I must move on. I make the point that we cannot discuss this Bill in isolation from what the Government are proposing to do under Clause 17 of the deregulation Bill, whatever view we may take of this matter. We cannot divorce those two provisions and that fact lessens for many people the attractiveness of the proposition put by another place.
I now turn to the matter of unrestricted shopping on Sundays. We should have no doubt that that will wipe out the small shopkeeper. That is another matter of anxiety to me. For many years when I was a Member of Parliament in another place I was concerned by the effect of large scale multi-purpose shopping. One only has to go to places such as Dudley to see the effect that mammoth shopping centres have on a town. The centre of Dudley has been obliterated. I am glad to say that the Secretary of State for the Environment is now becoming increasingly worried about the effect of multi-purpose super stores. He is concerned about their general effect on the environment and about their effect on small shopkeepers who provide a service for a community.
I ask Members of the Committee to be careful before they vote for the proposal from another place lest they do a great deal of damage to small shopkeepers who in my judgment have an important role to play in our society. If we restrict the times when large shops can open on Sundays, that will have an important economic effect on small shopkeepers. As another speaker has already mentioned, the businessmen who control large
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stores often support by donations those who stand for election on a law and order ticket; but they then totally ignore the law in their own case.
I had intended to deal with workers' rights, but my noble friend Lord Murray has dealt with that adequately. He has quite rightly pointed out that several unions, including some large ones, have expressed opposition to these proposals. Do we really wish to permit shopping every hour that God sends? I do not believe that is right. Former constituents of mine who lived close to large shopping centres used to complain to me that they were constantly disturbed by the passage of juggernauts full of goods. They were also disturbed by the noise of hundreds of cars and thousands of people six days a week. They asked me whether they were entitled to a bit of peace and quiet on a Sunday and whether they would have to accept disturbance on seven days a week. Therefore I object to the Government's proposal for strong environmental reasons in addition to wishing to preserve the essential nature of the English sabbath. Amendment No. 3 which seeks to keep the sabbath special is, I believe, the essential, civilised and sensible amendment which this Committee ought to adopt. I hope it does so.
The Lord Bishop of Norwich: I, too, wish to express gratitude to the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, for the clear and concise way in which he introduced this debate. I am sorry that he is not in the Chamber at the moment because I wanted to sympathise with him. Perhaps one of his noble friends will convey that to him. He told us how he intended to vote. He is being admirably loyal to his Prime Minister and Members of the Cabinet. However, he will find himself in a conflict of loyalty following the advice given by his own bishop. Perhaps he could be reminded that we are still in the season of repentance but also of forgiveness.
The town of Beaconsfield, where I was once rector, has links with two great parliamentarians. However, Benjamin Disraeli never lived there. He passed through the town of Beaconsfield and I believe he changed horses there. He fancied the name of the town and took its title when he entered this Chamber. The most famous resident who is commemorated modestly with a little brass plaque underneath a pew is Edmund Burke, who was perhaps Beaconsfield's greatest son. I cannot recall his precise words, but I believe he said that the destruction of ancient or well established institutions is fraught with unpredictable peril. He said that society is a complex mass of relationships which time and usage have lubricated. An attack on these relationships in the name of a social theory which may hold some ephemeral currency, or in the name of financial efficiency which later turns out to have been mostly illusion, may have appalling consequences for other social relationships outside the imaginative grasp of radical reformers.
The principle of sabbath rest is deep in the traditions of the Jewish, Christian and Moslem religions. Much is made in the media these days of divisions between religions—divisions among Christians. On this issue, we speak with one voice, representing millions of our fellow citizens.

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This is not an issue about rationalising illogical or inconvenient legislation. It is about changing the society in which we live. I do not believe that the noble Viscount, Lord Tonypandy, exaggerated. The dispute is not between different sets of legislation. Let there be no doubt. It is a dispute between two, not three, sets of legislation. The option for which another place voted is deregulation by another name.
The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, said that the proposal is not government policy—
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, if the right reverend Prelate states that it is deregulation by another name, why is there—
Noble Lords: Order!
The Earl of Onslow: Why is there—
Noble Lords: Order!
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I think that it is the will of the House that the Lord Bishop continues.
The Earl of Onslow: It is a question of clarification.
Noble Lords: Order!
The Lord Bishop of Norwich: My Lords, perhaps we may have a private conversation on the subject a little later. I shall gladly justify the statement.
The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, said that the proposal is not Government policy; and that is strictly true. Nevertheless, the voting by members of the Cabinet, in particular after the very early lead given by the Prime Minister, indicates that that option is strongly held opinion in government circles. The Government seem to show little awareness of the extent of the social change involved. With due deference to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, to quote the example of Scotland is not strictly relevant. Scotland is not England. You are not comparing like with like. When Church leaders express support for the Keep Sunday Special proposals, narrow religious interests are furthest from our minds. For example, we are not in the least anxious about church attendance. We are concerned with precisely the same issues which concern the Government: the wellbeing and health of society. Some politicians, not necessarily in this House, naively assume that the churches' interest in such matters is always to do with their own attendance figures. Opinion polls are not an obsession with Church leaders—though it is an interesting fact that in the two years since Sunday trading has, quite illegally, become common, church attendance has risen.
The point is this. We want to help the Government do their job. Most of us have no interest whatever in party issues. If the Labour Party were in power, it would find us just as critical as the Conservatives have done. Incidentally, I find extraordinary the credulity of trade unions and some Members of the Labour Party in believing that sufficient protection to shopworkers can possibly be given. The proposals for worker protection will almost certainly prove to be unworkable. Can noble Lords imagine that there will not be discrimination
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when two people are interviewed for the same job and the question is asked, "Are you willing to work on a Sunday?" What of the young man or woman executive who is against Sunday working on principle? Is it realistic to believe that their career prospects will not be affected?
For most of the time most of us on these Benches, in this Chamber and in the world at large, keep silent on political issues. But when there is virtual unanimity, not just among the Bench of Bishops but between all the Church leaders of England, and between all the main religions represented in our country, the Government and those who support them would be wise to listen carefully. The present Government have chosen to adopt a high moral tone. That is all right. But moralising is not a matter of words and slogans; it is a matter of hard thinking based on the experience of making moral decisions. In that area, the Government have at hand a huge body of expertise of which they seem to make scant use. No wonder when we feel that the Government have their moral thinking askew, some of us step in and say so. On the issue of Sunday trading, I believe that the Government, and those who support the proposals, have seriously underestimated the moral and social significance of the issue.
In recent weeks, the wisdom of this House has been powerfully expressed and effective in assisting the Government to bring forward legislation which is realistic and protective of a wide variety of interests. It is to be hoped that the Committee will offer similarly realistic advice on this fundamental matter which concerns the wellbeing of our society.
5 p.m.
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde: I rise with a little trepidation as one of the newer Peers, with a contribution which will be in opposition to some of my fellow Peers on this side of the Chamber, a number of whom worked, as I did, as trade unionists.
I shall support the Shopping Hours Reform Council changes which were endorsed in another place. It has been suggested that no one knew about the deregulation Bill when the vote was taken in another place. The facts do not bear that out. The deregulation Bill was published on 19th January. On the Second Reading vote in another place, the majority was 75. The Third Reading vote was taken on 23rd February. The majority increased from 75 to 93. That suggestion is something of red herring.
Perhaps I may say to my noble friend Lord Howell, that it is also a red herring to refer to "housewives". Seventy per cent. of working women in Britain are married. They would resent being called housewives. They are workers equal with other people and have to contribute to the family income.
I live in an inner city. I feel that I live in the middle of a large shopping area. I know when I prefer to shop. I prefer to shop on a bright, sunny Sunday rather than on a dark night in a badly lit area in an inner city—an area in which many women are afraid to walk about, never mind having to carry shopping home at night after working late.

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The deregulation proposals were also trailed last July in the White Paper on Sunday trading. There has been reference to the United States. Many of us have visited the United States either on holiday or to see families, and have spent some time there. Sunday is still special in the United States. Indeed, I am sure that the Church will confirm that proportionately more people go to church in the States than in Britain. I am sure that I am wrong in detecting this view which seems to creep into the debate. It is the implication that, if one is a Christian, and believes in Christian values, one will not vote for reform of Sunday trading. I am a Christian. I may not be a very good Christian but I try to follow the values and teachings of Christianity. I shall be voting for the Shopping Hours Reform Council proposals voted for in another place. I hope it will be accepted that doing so makes me no less of a Christian.
I have spent the whole of my life in the trade union movement and I am proud of it. I have great difficulty in being urged to vote for a proposal which, if applied, would overnight put out of employment something like 170,000 people, the majority of whom would be women. That is what the Keep Sunday Special proposal would do. That could be the implication of closing on a Sunday. It is not just because of consumer choice; as my noble friend Lord Tonypandy said, something like 16 million people shop on a Sunday. I confess that I did last Sunday; I had to, I had no time to do my shopping.
It is not just the consumers. The people who work on a Sunday were asked whether they wanted the work and the extra income taken from them and they said, no, they did not want to lose the work and, understandably, they did not want to lose the extra income. However, I am not saying that the employment protection measures for Sunday workers are anywhere near adequate. I look forward to debating that in the House and to the support of colleagues and noble Lords. Of course, workers in Britain are not just afraid of being exploited on a Sunday. The changes in employment legislation and the way in which protections have been eroded mean that many thousands of workers in Britain are exploited seven days a week. The protections also need improving.
Recent surveys have shown that something like 73 per cent. of trade unionists welcome and want a reform of Sunday trading. That is not surprising: they are the very people who have to work difficult shifts. I was proud to represent people who had to work on seven-day cover in continuous operations like paper mills and printing. People would not get their newspapers on Monday morning if other people did not work on Sunday night. So I represented those who had to work seven days a week. To opt for the Keep Sunday Special proposal would put many of those people out of work.
Employment protection is absolutely crucial. In this debate, the name of the trade unions has been used on a number of occasions. I should like to defend USDAW. I wish to because I believe that it needs defence. It has been said that USDAW opposes changes time after time. That is true. It has been said that USDAW does not have the support of its members in signing the agreement. USDAW has signed the agreement covering extra payment for Sundays. As any trade union general
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secretary knows—and I have only recently given up being general secretary—although there are conference decisions, if the situation changes after conference we have an executive council to deal with it in consultation with the members whom we represent. I was also taught many years ago that a trade union officer's job is to represent the will of the members. In signing the agreement, USDAW has consulted its members who work on Sunday and, after taking their views, has signed the agreements which exist.
Therefore, I hope that Members of the Committee will cease criticising an organisation which tries its best to represent members in a difficult world today. It is a deregulated world where the worker has very little power, a world where many thousands already work in shops on Sunday. Those are the people who will be affected if the proposal of the Shopping Hours Reform Council is not carried. I shall support that reform from my practical experience and involvement, knowing not only that it is the wish of the people who work on Sunday and the consumer but also that the law at the moment is a mess.
5.15 p.m.
Several noble Lords: Young!
Noble Lords: Howe!
Earl Ferrers: I am sure that there will be time for both my noble and learned friend Lord Howe and my noble friend Lady Young. However, it may be appropriate for the noble and learned Lord to speak next, followed by the noble Baroness.
Lord Howe of Aberavon: I was just on the point of yielding to the noble Baroness but of course I bow to the superior authority of my noble friend.
Perhaps I may begin by—remarkably—expressing agreement with the noble Viscount, Lord Tonypandy, on one point. We both agree that those who have suggested that the legislation affects merely England present an incomplete picture. It affects England and Wales. At that point, however, I part company with the noble Viscount and emphasise what follows from that. He said that the proposed legislation threatened to uproot the foundations of our way of life and he used other dramatic and elegant phrases. I simply cannot believe that that kind of rhetoric is applicable to a proposition for which there is no equivalent whatever in Scotland. Arguments can be made about it, but to suggest that Scotland, without any intervention of the law, should not give guidance and be taken as an example seems to me to be misleading oneself.
Secondly, the legislation requiring shops to close on Sunday is not part of the antique foundations of our legislative system. Sunday closing of shops started with a Private Member's Bill enacted in 1936. If our foundations are as slender and non-antique as that, then I am not impressed by them. Of course, I admire and respect the proposition that Sunday should be kept special, but my desire is that it should not be kept special on the basis of an inadequate and increasingly disrespected structure of law.

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The noble Viscount also said that he had not noticed people clamouring to change the law. I agree. The law has been falling into disrepute and desuetude as a result of its totally unusable condition. If there were any clamour about it at all, it would be a clamour to move towards making an honest woman of the law.
When the Gowers Committee considered the matter back in 1947, when it was already seen that the law was a nonsense, the committee made one simple proposition:
"Legislation that affects the daily lives of so many people should be simple and intelligible".
Nothing could be further from that aspiration than the law as it now is. As long ago as 1959, the Conservative Party said in response in its manifesto:
"We shall revise some of our social laws … which are at present full of anomalies and lead to abuse".
That is exactly what is happening now, rather belatedly. I hesitate to cross swords with the most reverend Primate on the matter, and I have much respect for his speech. He said that he was not posing as a legalistic sabbatarian, but that is precisely what the legislation would do if we were to adopt the proposals of the Keep Sunday Special proposition.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, I favour complete deregulation, but I do not believe it to be a realistic proposition. I therefore think we have to go for a sensible, practical halfway step towards it. If one looks at the structure of the law as it would emerge from the Keep Sunday Special schedule, I quote from the opinion circulated by five distinguished Queen's Counsel, not because I want to cite their opinion but because it happens to be true. It says this about the Keep Sunday Special schedule:
"this proposal potentially extends to every retail trading activity in England and Wales. … there are exemptions and exceptions, which in themselves present almost insuperable difficulties of comprehension and application, including the fundamental question of what is or is not a shop within the meaning of the Bill … past experience of having a ban which is subject to exemptions is that it perpetuates problems for those who enforce the law … the compliance and enforcement problems which would arise [under the Keep Sunday Special schedule] would be far greater than ever was the case under the Shops Act 1950".
That is undoubtedly true. If we look at the schedule produced by the SHRC lobby, it sets out 57 different questions that would need to be answered; 57 new anomalies arising if we were to follow that way of dealing with the law. It was said by one judge of the original 1950 Shops Act provisions that,
"There is almost no nonsensical proposition which may not be seriously put forward as a result of looking at these innumerable exceptions".
If that is true under the legislation today, then it will become increasingly true if we adopt the provisions set out in the Keep Sunday Special schedule.
I take one other phrase from the most reverend Primate. He said that we should be proud of Sunday as we know it. Speaking not so much as a lawyer but as a citizen of this country, I am ashamed that our attempt to preserve the specialness of Sunday, which I respect, has reduced the law to its present condition of being so widely disrespected. I suggest that there is almost no aspect of the law that does more to bring it into disrepute than the existing provisions. I do not believe that that
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situation would be changed by enacting the schedule commended by the Keep Sunday Special lobby. We should be jumping from a frying-pan into a fire of incomprehension and a fire of unenforceability. The relatively simple compromise suggested by the SHRC alternative which is now in the legislation as it has reached this House is the option that we should support.
I confess that, were Ito have my own way, I should march boldly into the Lobby with the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, who wishes us to give the other place the chance to think again.
In 1961 I wrote in a journal called Crossbow, which still flourishes today and which I then edited, an article under the title Set the Shopper Free. In it I quoted from a publication from the Institute of Economic Affairs —represented by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, who is sitting beside me. That is what we ought to be doing if we are to make real sense of this matter. I do not believe that even the rhetoric of the noble Lords, Lord Harris and Lord Boyd-Carpenter, and myself, taken together, would persuade the other place to think again since it rejected that proposition by a majority of 404 votes to 174. I am a modest man. I shall not try to tackle that decision. I urge the Committee to support the sensible conclusion that was arrived at by the other place.
Baroness Young: There is a great danger as this debate proceeds that those who are in favour of either the SHRC option, for which the Commons voted, or total deregulation are arguing a case which grossly over-simplifies the effects of what will happen if this measure comes into effect.
I listened with great care to my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter and to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, and to a certain extent my noble friend Lord Howe, about the comparison with Scotland. That comparison is easy to make. But it is completely incorrect. There are two reports which have investigated the situation: the Auld Committee report of 1984 and the London economics report of April 1993 (slightly less than a year ago). Both confirmed that Scotland is not a good model for understanding the effect of deregulation in England and Wales. Shopping patterns are different in Scotland because of lower population density and car ownership; higher transport and energy costs for shops; and an insignificant presence of large food multiples. All those factors have acted as a disincentive to Sunday shopping in Scotland. That will of course change once the multiples are there in large numbers. There is already evidence that small shops are starting to close. But to delude ourselves into thinking that what happens in Scotland is a good parallel to what would happen in England and Wales is simply not true.
My second point is that we should not forget that the Commons voted for the SHRC option by 18 votes. So many figures have been bandied about, but that is the fact. The most serious thing that will come about—
Noble Lords: Order!
Baroness Jay of Paddington: I hesitate to intervene, but I know that the noble Baroness is very keen that the facts in her contribution should be correct. Is it not the

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case that the other place voted against the Keep Sunday Special option by 18 votes, and voted for the Shopping Hours Reform Council option by a majority of 75?
Baroness Young: I quite accept that the whole point is that the Keep Sunday Special option was lost by 18 votes. That is the point that I am making.
One point has been forgotten in this important debate. I have talked to many noble Lords over the past weeks, and it is quite clear that everybody is very worried about the effect on small shops. There is no doubt at all that, were either the SHRC option or the option of deregulation to come into effect, the decline of small shops would be accelerated. All the evidence shows that. It would have a significant effect on village communities—on the old, the disabled and anybody who does not have a car. It has also been forgotten that the change will have a devastating effect on city centres. My friends in government are always talking about doing something about city centres. Of course it will put pressure on the small shops. The big shops will get their extra business only by squeezing out the small shops. They have already started to do that, and they will continue. That is a fact. Things will change in a very dramatic way. We shall wring our hands and say, "Isn't it sad that the city centre is derelict?" and we shall have contributed towards that dereliction.
I find it astonishing that so many of my noble friends who sit with me on these Benches, and my noble friends who are in government and who I always thought supported small businesses, should vote for a measure which will extinguish thousands of them overnight. Even in the last Budget my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer introduced measures to help small businesses. Five minutes later my colleagues here decide to abolish thousands of them. I find that absolutely incredible. Nevertheless, that is what they are doing.
The noble Baroness, Lady Dean, talked about job losses. The research that has been done into job losses, in the London economic survey conducted for the Home Office, indicates that total deregulation would lead to 19,100 job losses and the SHRC option to 5,300 job losses; while our proposal would lead to 12,900 to 21,000 job gains. That is a point in its favour.
People far more eloquent than myself have spoken about Sunday as a special day. I believe that it is special. There is much to be said, as the noble Viscount, Lord Tonypandy, said, for it being a British institution. Many people have said that to me as I have travelled around the world. I do not believe that the argument rests on whether one can go to Church on Sunday. I like to think that I am a Christian and that if I wanted to I could go to church three times on a Sunday (possibly four) and go shopping as well. I hope that I would think of going to church on other days of the week and carrying out my principles.
That is not the issue. It is that for many people Sunday is a very special day. Again, I find it absolutely ironic that in the International Year of the Family we should decide as a Parliament to agree to a measure which is as anti-family as this one is. We have heard about the effect on shopworkers. I thought that the noble
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Lord, Lord Murray, was very clear on that point. What is written in the Bill is not worth the paper that it is printed on. Other people will come to suffer very much from this measure.
Nor do I believe that the analogy of the cement works that was made by my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter is true. Of course everybody would want to work if they were to be paid double. But who will be paid double under this scheme? It is a very different proposition.
I speak as somebody who has brought up a family and feels very deeply about the role of the family. I feel strongly that in this country we are going clown a very slippery slope in relation to all sorts of issues. I shall not say again what I said when we had a debate on the matter in this House only a few weeks ago. But there are occasions in life when it is possible to stand up for a very great principle which affects us all. Those of us who believe in it should stand up and say so. I hope that all those who really care for the good health of the fabric of society will vote this evening for the KSS/RSAR option.
Lord Harris of High Cross: It is impossible to utter more than half a sentence without the risk of offending someone whom we either greatly respect or have some affection for. I must separate myself from the noble Viscount, Lord Tonypandy, whom I would normally follow through fire and worse. I am very unhappy to find myself in head-on confrontation with the noble Baroness, Lady Young, whom I greatly respect.
There was a time when the Tory Party had a slogan — it was more than a slogan; it was a principle of policy — under the banner: "Change is our ally". The noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, referred to the earlier days of his Bow Group past. In 1964, under the Government of Sir Alec Douglas-Home, as he then was, it was the then Mr. Heath as President of the Board of Trade who abolished retail price maintenance.
At that time we heard speeches which were precisely the same as the one that we heard from the noble Baroness and have heard from many others, to the effect that this was the end of the world as we had known it. It was said that we were abolishing a time hallowed system of uniform pricing and whether we went to shop in Harrods or the Outer Hebrides we would find the same price for branded products, and so on. The decision was a very close-run thing. I recall that the Government carried one amendment by a single vote. A year or two later no one would conceivably have thought of going back to resale price maintenance.
The abolition of resale price maintenance in 1964 opened the way for a revolution in retailing. Quite a different pattern of provision of shops and shopping habits gradually began to assert itself. The most reverend Primate said that market forces were a good servant but a bad master. Market forces are people doing what they like to do without harming others and dealing and trading with people who wish to trade with them. In fact market forces represent a democratic process of free movement and trade. To raise them up as a tyrant or master is absurd.
I want to fasten on one issue. It is the reason that we are having this debate and have this great opportunity

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for radical reform. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, and others said, the Shops Act 1950 has fallen into disrepute and non-effect. De jure we now have a system of deregulation. The moment that we return to regulation—this Bill as it now stands is not a deregulation Bill but a Bill for regulating on a different basis the opening and closing of shops—a line has to be drawn between permitted and forbidden activities. There have to be systems of inspection, enforcement and penalties. We will find that in this Bill lines are already drawn which have within them the seeds of future absurdities and inequities, let alone changes which will take place in the future and which we cannot anticipate.
The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, asked why the measurement was set at 280 square metres. What is "the relevant floor area"? Those questions could be debated. Who wants paragraphs 3 and 4 of Schedule 2? They require a new tribe of inspectors with power to enter any premises "with or without a constable" to take measurements and photographs, to collect records and ascertain personal responsibility for suspected violations. All that seems to me to be invidious and mischievous.
For my money, however, the worst feature of the Bill is the religious discrimination in Part III of Schedule 2 where there is to be a public register of what are called "persons of the Jewish religion", as certified by someone in turn authorised by the Board of Deputies of British Jews—if it is a company or partnership, it must be a majority of the partners or directors. They would be authorised to have their names listed in some public place as permitted to open on a Sunday. That is a new "Schindler's List". It is a list of people who will be reprieved from prosecution if they open on Sunday, provided that they have gone through the formalities and given their names to the local authority to be listed for public view and display and so long as they close their shops on Saturday. It is a facility which I understand is not open to members of other religions.
Being an economist, I have to consider how economic affairs and future developments may affect these matters. The most reverend Primate said in a very appealing way that he was trying to think long term because he had been around for a long time. The problem is that most of us have been around for a long time; but it is a long time in the past and if we are to think long term, we must think of a long time into the future. My abiding belief over the whole of my working life has been that Britain's long drawn out, relative economic decline has been hastened by a natural conservative tendency—especially marked on the Labour Benches—to put caution before risk-taking, restriction before flexibility and security before progress.
A wonderful world of change opens up in the future. We do not know how it will come to us. The future comes a day at a time. There will be things of which we approve and others of which we tend to disapprove. That is what living in a free society entails. We now have a chance to put the past decently behind us and embrace the future. In this Chamber in 1982 the noble
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Baroness, Lady Trumpington, gave a radical lead for freedom for shops through outright repeal. I suggest that, since we have been proved right in this matter 12 years later, we should now once again blow her trumpet for deregulation, bearing in mind that if the amendment should fail, we can always fall back on the compromise and sink our principles.
5.30 p.m.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: What has struck me about the whole business is that there is no great public demand for deregulation or partial deregulation. I have not received one letter from an individual demanding that shops should be open seven days a week. That is unusual. I have not seen marches on Parliament or great Lobbies asking for Sunday opening. I have not seen great marches demanding deregulation or partial deregulation.
Baroness Gould of Potternewton: Perhaps I may interrupt my noble friend and ask him whether he saw the demonstration in favour of Sunday trading. The demonstration was composed mainly of women who wanted to be able to shop on a Sunday.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: I shall come back to women in a moment. I saw the hyped up affair which descended on Parliament, but it was not the kind of demonstration which we are used to in the trade union movement. It was all got up for commercial purposes.
I repeat, the fact of the matter is that I have seen no great demand for deregulation and certainly have not had any letter or telephone call from any individual demanding it. Indeed, I believe that the whole issue has been hyped up by a number of large stores. It has not been done to suit shoppers but to suit the stores' own convenience and their desire to grab market share at the expense of others, including the small shopkeeper about whom we have already heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Young. Incidentally, many of them will be forced out of business, and are being forced out of business already at the rate of 1,000 a week. That trend will accelerate if we have deregulation or partial deregulation. We have already seen the dereliction of town centres as a result of the activities of out-of-town trading, and deregulation will merely increase that trend.
National opinion polls have shown that people do not have a burning desire to go shopping on seven days a week. Indeed, the last national opinion poll that I saw showed that 80 per cent. of women are satisfied with the KSS/RSAR option. Those figures accord with a newspaper poll carried out last November by the Reading Chronicle—I live in Reading—which covers the very representative area of the Thames Valley. The poll found that the percentage of people in favour of total deregulation was 22 per cent. and 7 per cent. wanted partial deregulation. The KSS/RSAR option was favoured by 66 per cent.—two-thirds. That is a significant vote for the KSS option. And 4 per cent. voted for opening Christmas only. That was the result of a local poll which confirms other polls taken nationally.
The large retail organisations have attained their goal by law breaking. Let us make no mistake about it, when

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they opened on Sunday they defied the law. Let us not be namby pamby about it, they broke the law. They prosecute little people who shop lift—I support them in that—but so rich, big and powerful are these boys that when they break the law they expect to be rewarded by a change in the law to satisfy their demands. That is what will happen if this Committee votes for partial or total deregulation; they will have attained their objectives by flagrantly breaking the law.
We are told that seven-day shopping will benefit working women. I doubt that. Women are already six-day slaves. What do we want? Do we want to make them seven-day slaves? I am surprised that some of my noble friends appear to want to do just that.
Then there is the environment to consider. We should say a lot more about the environment. What happens to the people who live near shops? They will be extremely disadvantaged by noise, fumes, dirt, disturbance and inconvenience for seven days a week in future instead of six. Are we not concerned for them? Are not they entitled to be considered when we decide on seven-day shopping? Of course they are. We in this Chamber at least should consider them, because if the Bill goes through nobody else will. There may be provision in the Bill for people around a shopping area to be consulted. But there is no provision which will allow them to stop it and therefore, before we vote, we should consider the people who live near shopping centres who will be inconvenienced environmentally.
In relation to the environment we should also consider energy conservation. There is no point laughing about that. In support of easing global warming and energy conservation, the Government are to charge us an extra 17.5 per cent. on our heating bills. Therefore they must be concerned about conservation. Estimates say that seven-day opening of shops will ensure that an extra 500,000 tonnes of CO2 will be discharged into the atmosphere from extra lighting and heating. There will also be other undesirable discharges from motor vehicles. We should consider the environment in those respects. And those without cars —older people and single parents—will be inconvenienced by the loss of high street shopping and small shops.
What about shop workers? We heard my noble friend Lord Murray give a good account of the difficulties that shop workers and others will face as a result of the Bill if deregulation is agreed. As he said, while the Bill makes some provision to safeguard the position of shop workers it does nothing to protect other employees in other industries who may have to work on Sundays as a result of deregulation. Employees such as lorry drivers and those providing services to shops will be affected, as will local authority workers such as inspectors, road cleaners and traffic control staff. There is no statutory protection for them.
I advise UNISON. My noble friend Lady Dean spoke about USDAW. UNISON has three times the number of members as USDAW.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: But are they shop workers?
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: No, but most of them are women. I said that I would come back to the subject of women. Presumably women are among those who my noble friends say want to shop on Sunday, yet UNISON is against partial or total deregulation and in favour of keeping Sunday special. That means a large union which represents a wide variety of people is in favour of keeping Sunday special.
I want to say this to my noble friend. I was told that because I want to support the KSSC—not on religious grounds but simply because I believe we should keep Sunday special—I am unprogressive; that it is progressive to open shops on seven days. What is progressive about rampant commercialism seven days a week instead of six? Supporters of deregulation should ask themselves that question before they criticise me for being unprogressive.
Furthermore, there is likely to be a demand for other services to be open on Sunday. Let us consider those people. Will there be a demand for public: libraries to be open? If shops are to be open, why should not public libraries also open? I am glad noble Lords are nodding. Let us get to the point. Let us find out exactly what it means. Will we want the civic offices to open as well? What about the employees of building societies and banks? Nobody has yet mentioned those. But presumably they will be forced to work on Sunday if Sunday shopping or Sunday activity operates.
You name it and there will be a demand that it opens on Sunday. In turn that will bring about a situation where, in working terms—my noble friends should listen to this—Sunday will be just the same as any other day. Therefore why pay a premium for Sunday working? The logical argument is that if all seven days of the week are the same and if Sunday is not special, why should anybody pay extra for it? There is therefore a danger, particularly to low paid workers, that as a result of deregulation their total take home pay will be much smaller than it has been hitherto. There is a lot more to say on the issue, but I will not say it. I have probably said enough to convince the Committee to vote my way.
I want to finish with a warning. It must not be forgotten that once we pass partial deregulation we shall have full deregulation. The one will lead to the other. And once we have done it, like hanging, there will be no going back. I hope that when Members of the Committee vote tonight they will remember that there is no going back; they will have done it for good; there will be no time for regrets. If they have ruined our week and ruined our Sunday they should have it on their consciences for the rest of their lives.
Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes: In rising to speak in this debate I shall not so much declare an interest as declare my form. As a former Minister for Consumer Affairs, a former chairman of the National Consumer Council and as someone who is on the hoard of one of our largest retail chains, it would be very neglectful of me not to say a few words. I immediately say to the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, that he is obviously unaware that the National Consumer Council conducted a survey which showed overwhelmingly that consumers wanted

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to be able to choose whether to shop on Sunday. That is what deregulation is about. It is about choice; choice whether to shop on Sunday; choice whether to open and trade on Sunday; choice whether to work on Sunday; and last but not least, choice whether to keep Sunday special. No one wants to take those choices away. Some of us want to extend those freedoms.
I could not go the whole way with the deregulation amendment although many of my inclinations lead me in that direction. I take the point that smaller shops and convenience shops are very important to consumers. They provide a very important service. They do it not just to provide a service; but nevertheless they do. That is why I go for the six hour option. It is already known that smaller shops do a majority of their business on Sunday before ten o'clock. Therefore that option offers a greater measure of protection than total deregulation. The Keep Sunday Special option, which proposes that anyone can open in the four weeks before Christmas for as long as they want, would be the most terrible blow to small shops. That is when they do their greatest trade, and they would not even have the protection of the larger stores having limited opening times.
When these debates first started I was still at Boots. Boots said at that time that they were not in favour of it but that they would do what their customers wanted and in terms of obeying the law as far as possible. That is where I find the argument of my noble friend Lady Young in previous debates—what is known, I believe, as the Marks & Spencer case—difficult to understand. I would not for one moment accuse, as some people have done, Marks & Spencer of being holier than thou—that would not be fair—but there is an inconsistency. I say that with the greatest respect to my noble friend. First, Marks & Spencer said that they were not in favour of Sunday opening; then they said that they would not break the law, and more power to them for that; and now—
Baroness Young: Unlike others.
Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes: Unlike others; I grant my noble friend that. Marks & Spencer now say that they will open on Sunday, if the law is changed, in some of the 20 edge-of-town sites. If that is the case, what they are doing is looking at their own viability niche in the market, and quite right too. They have a duty both to their customers and to their shareholders. But the fact remains that it upsets all the arguments that they have put before about whether they want to trade on Sunday.
Baroness Young: I am very sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness but what she has said is so untrue that I feel I must correct it. Marks & Spencer, unlike major supermarkets, have never broken the law. That is the first and important point to make. Clearly, if the law changed the whole matter could be looked at again. If Marks & Spencer were to open—they have not yet done so—it would illustrate what will happen with the Shopping Hours Reform Council's proposals for deregulation; that everyone will probably end up by
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opening and Sunday will be exactly like every other day of the year, except, I believe, that we would be allowed off Christmas Day and Easter.
Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes: I am not as pessimistic about the outcome as my noble friend. I thought I made it quite clear that Marks & Spencer had never broken the law, unlike, as my noble friend said, some others. No one could be happy about that situation, I can assure noble Lords.
The argument put forward that if the small shops close people without cars will not be able to shop at the big centres shows that some people—and not just women—have not shopped at those centres themselves. Most have shuttle bus services to and from them if they are in city centres. The very pattern of Sunday opening which would follow the six hour option would vary right across the country, as it does in the United States. Where there were large shopping centres in the city or town centre it is likely that they would open. In areas where most of them were on the edge of town, it is unlikely that the city shops would open. They would do, quite correctly, what is viable for them, their shareholders and, above all, their customers. That is the important point.
I would say to the right reverend Prelates and to the noble Lord, Lord Jakobovits, whose contribution on Second Reading I read, that I have the greatest respect and sympathy for their view. Sadly, it is totally unrealistic. The people who are standing about on the streets on a Sunday—young people and not so young people gathering in parks—are not doing that because their parents are working. They are doing that because their parents have not told them to keep Sunday special and have not told them why they should keep Sunday special. Until you put that right you can stop blaming shop opening hours for any kind of deferral from the kind of practice which in an ideal society would be a very nice situation for families.
While I am on the point of families, perhaps I may say that Sunday shopping is very often the only opportunity for families to shop together and to make major purchases. Youngsters coming home from school nowadays have a great deal of homework. It is not possible for them to go shopping at night when their fathers and mothers may or may not have finished work. That is a further argument for the family.
Baroness Seear: What is wrong with Saturday?
Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes: I am sure the noble Baroness will be aware that a good many schoolchildren have Saturday morning jobs. In any case, they want free time to entertain themselves or to do whatever it is they want to do after a week of work at school. In my view people shop on Sundays not particularly because they want to shop on Sundays but because there is no alternative. It may be because they are working. I shop on Sunday because my husband is home and he can carry the dog food to the car. Apart from that I do not think I would choose to shop on Sunday but I will defend the right of people to choose to do so provided reasonable precautions are taken in the deregulation.

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I share concern about the regulation of the partial deregulation. No piece of legislation has ever been perfect and not capable of improvement. I do not believe that this one will be either. But I believe that as it stands it offers the best opportunity and the best choice for consumers, families and those who want to keep Sunday special.
6 p.m.
Baroness Gould of Potternewton: I believe that it is important to respect the views of those people who want to keep Sunday special and to stop shopping on Sunday. I equally expect them to respect my view, which is to support the Sunday Hours Reform Council. I find it very distressing that there is some assumption that because I support the idea of shopping on a Sunday I do not know how to bring up a family or that I have not brought up a family or that somehow I am being a bad mother. That is an outrageous statement to make.
Noble Lords: Oh!
Baroness Gould of Potternewton: It has been suggested in the context of the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Young, that she brought up a family and that family attitudes are declining. One has to respect each other's particular circumstances and understand them.
I support the views of the Shopping Hours Reform Council because I believe that it should be a question of free choice, but not an imposition by law. Under those regulations Sunday can remain special for those people who want it to remain so. It will still be a day when the pressure of work is off most people and they are not waiting for the alarm clock at six o'clock in the morning in order to go to work. They will have the right to choose whether to go to church, to play sports, visit friends, go to the pub or whatever it is that they wish to do on that day. I do not believe that in any way the partial deregulation measures change that. Somehow there is an assumption that going shopping takes all day. That is not the case because there are many other things which people will be able to do on that day.
My main reservation about the restrictive proposals concerns the inconsistencies. I would understand it if people were saying that principally they are opposed to the idea of any shops being open on a Sunday and to any trading at all on a Sunday. But that is not the case. It is selective. I cannot understand why it is right for some to have to work on Sundays and not right for others. I cannot understand why it is acceptable for me to shop in a small shop, but not acceptable for me to shop in a large shop. I do not understand the logic of that. I do not understand why it i s acceptable for men-type shops—
Lord Elton: My Lords, as the noble Baroness has encouraged me, I simply want to supply the answer. It is because her shopping contributes to keeping small shops open whereas her shopping in the large shops on Sundays helps to close the small shops.
Baroness Gould of Potternewton: My Lords, I shall respond to that in due course. As I said, I do not know why it is acceptable for men-type shops, such as the DIY and motor accessory shops, to be open on Sunday but
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not shops which women and families might wish to visit. I do not know why it is acceptable for the big football matches to be held on Sunday, usually taking the male partner away from the home for the bulk of Sunday afternoon, but not for me to go to a shop. I do not know why I cannot buy basic essentials for the home, but I can buy a bottle of gin.
Possibly what causes more disruption to family life than shopping for two hours in a supermarket as a family is for the father to spend a number of hours in the pub on Sunday afternoon, a place where children are not allowed, although I do not see any move to close down the pubs. A major inconsistency is that of shopping for four weeks before Christmas. Why four weeks and not six weeks or eight weeks? IS it because those four weeks cover the time when the largest amount of money is spent in the shops, which satisfies the big stores which want to stay open and be fully commercial? It is the blatant commercialism of Christmas during those four weeks. It also deprives the small shopkeeper of the best four weeks of Sunday trading. That is to say nothing of the many anomalies, and confusion, which have been spoken about, which the proposal will create for the shopkeeper and the customer. To me, it is even more complex than the 1950 Act.
We have had some discussion about the number of jobs which would be lost if the restrictive proposals go through. Obviously there are disagreements, but I agree with my noble friend Lady Dean about the 170,000 people who could lose their Sunday pay or even their jobs. There are 80,000 workers, mainly women, who work on a Sunday. The money they earn is an important part of their week's salary. For many women being without a job will mean losing their only access to economic independence. That is a very important factor.
Many speakers have referred to the level of employment protection in the Bill. In some: ways I find that strange. I would like those proposals to be considerably stronger than they are. The proposals in the Private Member's Bill which was introduced in the other place, and which were then supported by the KSSC, were nowhere near as good as the proposals currently before the House in this Bill. There is considerably better protection than there is for workers in small shops. I am sure that nobody, at one fell swoop, would want to deprive 170,000 workers of a vital part of their income in the name of employee protection.
Not only will this amendment create unemployment; it will also cause an estimated 39,000 small shops to close. Yet we are told that the whole point is to protect them. If we are closing down small shops, I do not understand how we can then protect them. Many of those shops will be Asian shops which traditionally open on a Sunday. I live in an area surrounded by Asian shops and if they close down it will change the whole culture and nature of the area and the ethnic minority areas of many of our cities.
The closure of small shops, particularly the specialist shops, will also have a disastrous effect on our tourist industry. Those shops rely on Sunday tourists for a great amount of trade. One has only to go into The Lanes in Brighton or visit any of the craft shops which many of our towns have now developed to see families browsing

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through those shops. The Federation of Small Businesses says that protective Sunday trading will do little to strengthen Britain's small firms sector. All the evidence shows that in the past two years when supermarkets have been opened, there has been a decline in the number of small shops which have closed. The rate has slowed down from 9.4 per cent. in 1988–90 to 6.7 per cent. between 1990–1992. That is at a time of recession. That position will be reversed by this restrictive proposal.
I have spoken to many of the small shopkeepers in the area in which I live. They say it is not Sunday trading which they fear and the possibility that the big shops might open. What they are most concerned about and what has caused them more problems are the increased costs for gas, water, electricity and the uniform business rate. They are also extremely concerned about the growth in the number of garage forecourt shops which these proposals do nothing to stop. Those forecourt shops are in direct competition with convenience stores and have undertaken major advertising campaigns on television in order to encourage people to shop there. I know that my local Spar shop, which has a garage forecourt shop directly opposite, is more concerned about that than the Sainsbury's supermarket which is two tube stations away. That is a further inconsistency in the argument for not allowing big shops to open for part of the day.
The noble Viscount, Lord Tonypandy, said that there was no demand. That is a complete misunderstanding. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Stoddart will disagree with these figures: 44 per cent. of people strongly supported the idea of having the big shops open and only 12 per cent. strongly opposed that.
I had not intended to, but I now wish to make some reference to women. I find it very strange that when I refer to mainly women demonstrating in favour of having the big shops open, that is regarded as not being a very substantive factor. In fact, I have probably organised more large demonstrations than almost any other woman in the country. I felt that that women's demonstration was very effective. It is wrong to criticise such demonstrations simply because women are the participants.
Women have shown overwhelmingly that they want the freedom to shop on Sundays. Equally, women shopworkers have welcomed the opportunity to work —or not to work—on Sundays. Working Women for Sunday Shopping has supported the proposals for partial deregulation because they will allow small shops to open all day on Sunday, but will restrict the opening hours of large shops. Overwhelmingly, that organisation has backed the new legal rights of shopworkers to choose whether to work on Sundays.
Questions have been asked about deregulation and about why, if we are to have 24-hour shopping, women cannot do their shopping in the evening. I do not know how many of your Lordships actually walk the streets at night, but I must tell the Committee that I would not walk the streets at night or go shopping at night and I certainly would not want to take my children shopping at night. I would want to take them to the shops when
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it is light and when they can feel free to enjoy the pleasure of shopping with me instead of being afraid when out on the streets. There is no doubt that late-night opening solves nothing for mothers with small children. In fact, it increases the danger of attacks on women—and men—when travelling home from the shops.
I hope—I say this in all sincerity—that when the Committee votes later, your Lordships will take into account the wishes of the millions of women who are not able to speak or to be here today, but whose lives will be affected by our decisions.
Lord Jakobovits: I had, and took, the opportunity to express my views on this profoundly important and stirring subject during the Second Reading debate and do not propose to reiterate what I said on that occasion. I rise simply to declare that the arguments to which I have listened with a great deal of interest and attention in favour of partial or complete deregulation have not convinced me and that I stand by the arguments that I presented on Second Reading.
Perhaps I may add just one thought that was not expressed on that occasion. Reference was made both then and today to countries such as Scotland and the United States which are deregulated but which nevertheless have still preserved their religious character and their observation of the sabbath as a special day. Having lived in one of those countries for eight years, I must say that to my mind the arguments lead to the opposite conclusion. If a country is still so profoundly attached to its religious values that only 22 per cent. take advantage of deregulation to keep their shops open—the same applies in Scotland which is a profoundly religious country—regulations are not needed to preserve Sunday as a special day. That is already implanted in the hearts of most of the citizens of that country. There is no need to be reminded, by looking at the streets on a Sunday, that Sunday is a special day and is different. However, in countries like ours where, alas, the degree of secularisation is far higher than in the United States—or in Scotland, for that matter—one needs the help of the state to preserve (for those who care) a certain degree of "specialness" about the day of rest.
Perhaps I may say in passing that, as we have been reminded, while it took God six days to create the world (and then it was finished), it has taken us in this House the past 44 years to discuss how to commemorate that action of creating the world and resting on the seventh day. I can only express the hope that, at long last, after 44 years of debating how to rest, we shall be able to put this subject to rest after our vote and that we shall be able to preserve something which is still unique as a treasure and which goes back to the very creation of the world itself, so that we shall not abandon it and it shall not abandon us.
6.15 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Oxford: I am grateful—
Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover: Perhaps I—
Noble Lords: Order!
The Lord Bishop of Oxford: I am—
Earl Ferrers: Perhaps the right reverend Prelate will take his seat for half a moment while I try to guide your Lordships. If your Lordships will allow the right reverend Prelate to make his contribution now and then the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, perhaps we shall be able to keep ourselves on the right track.
The Lord Bishop of Oxford: I am grateful for this opportunity and for the words that have just been said to us by the noble Lord, Lord Jakobovits. On behalf of all right reverend Prelates, I should like to assure the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, that of course we respect the sincerity and religious beliefs of those who take a different view from us. Nevertheless, the issue is what makes for the long-term health and well-being of society as a whole.
It is clear that there are very profound differences in the Committee about what makes a society a society. For that reason I should like to address two arguments that were put forward earlier by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, which have surfaced in different words throughout the debate. He said that regulation involves telling other people what to do. I suggest rather that the law is never neutral or value-free. It always reflects a particular understanding of humanity and human society. There is no need to be apologetic about that.
Our law has a particular understanding of marriage, for example, which is built into its very fabric. Similarly, it has had a particular understanding of Sunday. That is not because we are a theocracy or because of the interests of church-going people; it is because the rhythm of work and rest as a community is vital for the well-being of the community as a whole. If we take an organic, more Burkean, view of society—as I suspect the law does on some other issues, and as all Members of your Lordships' House do on certain issues—we will hesitate long before destroying what has been so basic to our way of life for so long. It is not a question of telling other people what to do, but of being attentive to the wisdom which has nourished our society for centuries and which, if possible, will still nourish it for the future.
The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, then argued powerfully, as have others this afternoon, that the distinction entailed by regulation would be irrational, unfair and lead to confusion. But the existence of twilight does not obliterate the distinction between night and day. There is a clear and crucial distinction between the shop which remains open on the corner and whole cities being given over to non-stop shopping. The one is compatible with the family and the community finding recreation together; the other is not. The difficulty of making fine distinctions as we often do in legislation (such as in the annual Finance Bill), should not discourage us from making a fundamental distinction in favour of letting families and communities share their leisure time with one another.
A great deal of emphasis has been laid upon choice, but if there was total, or even partial, deregulation one choice would certainly disappear before long, and that is the choice of communities to do things together. The noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, pointed out, quite rightly, that millions of people now work on a Sunday. Nevertheless, despite that, Sunday retains its special quality and character, and that it would not do if we allowed total, or even partial, deregulation.
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Several noble Lords have drawn attention to Scotland, but we need to look closely at the differences in culture between Scotland and England. Scotland has long had a strong sabbatarian tradition which enabled a traditional Sunday to survive deregulation. There is not a similar Calvinistic tradition in England, although the noble Viscount, Lord Tonypandy, will remind us that there is one to some extent in Wales. The special character of Sunday in England does not derive from religious sabbatarianism, but from the combination of law and tradition which allows families and communities to share their leisure opportunity together—opportunities which are still valued, and which I would argue are still vital for the long-term health and well being of society as a whole.
Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover: Of course my first duty is to declare an interest in that for 22 years I was chairman of the company that bears my name, and I remain, although not on the board, president of it. I feel a certain humility, although not perhaps the guilt that some earlier speakers suggested that I should have. I welcome the opportunity not of going over the arguments that have been so well put by other advocates of the compromise option which I favour, but rather to give some facts that are at variance with some of those given by those who have argued that we should keep Sunday special.
I was unable to speak on this subject when this place last considered it as I was abroad, arid I do not want to repeat the many arguments that have already been made. I want to say that there is not the slightest doubt that there is a huge demand for Sunday trading. That is the only reason why a company like mine, and our competitors, seeing small shops open, and seeing the pressure for that trade, whether guilty or not, wrongly or not, but with great difficulty and great pain, decided that we should do what our customers wanted us to do. The fact is that today 25 million of our fellow citizens go shopping regularly on a Sunday; and 11 million go shopping every Sunday. Who are we to ignore that number who choose to do that at the moment, however wrongly, and however wrong I and others have been to be influenced by that great pressure which was so well described by, for example, the noble Baroness, Lady Gould?
Baroness Young: I wonder whether the noble Lord will give us the basis of the figures that he has quoted.
Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover: Yes, I have the figures. They were done by MORI. The exercise was carried out in October. It was a large sample. It was worked out statistically that there are 25 million people
The Earl of Lauderdale: A figure of 25 million means every other person. Is that what the noble Lord means?
Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover: I mean that 25 million people go shopping, not every Sunday, but regularly. That means at least once in four weeks. If one goes into a large DIY store, a large supermarket, or the much abused large stores, one will see the crowds. One will see the large number of families that go shopping

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together because that is the only time that they can. When one looks at the staffing situation, I have to say that so popular is Sunday working that we, and, I have no doubt, our competitors, have a waiting list of those who wish to work.
Why do we believe that that is right? It is that the duty of a retailer is to try to satisfy the needs of his customer. That may seem foreign and dreadful when it means doing what we have done. It is as simple as that. Our greatest asset is our goodwill. Our greater goodwill comes if we can offer something that our competitors cannot offer. That is my explanation. It is no excuse; it is an explanation for why 25 million people go shopping every four weeks and 11 million people go shopping virtually every Sunday.
It is not for us to say where such people should shop. They choose to shop. They vote with their feet at the shop which they believe will give them the greatest convenience, the greatest value, and the closest to what they are looking for. It is not that the big shopkeepers can dictate. We are successful only if people vote with their feet and walk into our stores. Our goodwill depends upon pleasing the people.
The law at the moment is in disrepute. If we ignore the fact that such a vast number of our fellow citizens choose to shop and want to shop, then a changed law will also fall into disrepute in the sense that people will feel that Parliament is out of touch with their needs. We do not trade on Sunday to add to our profits but because we lose customers if we do not.
The Earl of Lauderdale: Before the noble Lord sits down, what is the scale of the sample that the MORI poll took?
Lord Jacques: Perhaps I—
Baroness Seear: Some people—
A noble Lord: Liberal!
Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover: The MORI poll—
Noble Lords: Order!
Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover: I was seeking to answer the question. The MORI poll in October 1993 showed that 63 per cent. of adults go shopping at least once a month.
The Earl of Lauderdale: But what is the number of people polled?
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: Oh do be quiet!
Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover: Shush! I am sorry, I do not have those figures. It was a MORI poll. MORI is a reputable and independent organisation.
Baroness Seear: Someone said "Liberal", but I would remind the Committee that we are not speaking on a party basis. I believe that all parties are divided on this matter, and we are surely drawing near to the end of the debate.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Baroness Seear: Some speakers have already said that every argument has been aired. I do not intend to go on for very long, but I should like to make one or two points. The first point I want to make—I had to be out of the Chamber for a short time unfortunately, and it may have been made then—is that I think we are all agreed that the present law is an ass; that the present law has to be changed. The other thing which is very agreeable about the debate—there are some things about it which are not very agreeable—is to find such unexpected and unusual bedfellows all over the Chamber. The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, will not misunderstand me if I say that I think it is the first time that I have ever been in total agreement with him. I am amazed that he did not manage to bring any European reference into his extremely convincing speech.
Unfortunately, I missed what I am sure was an excellent address—it always is—from the noble Lord, Lord Murray. I am deeply sceptical about the safeguards for employees that everyone is saying are so tied up in the legislation. Anyone who has had anything to do with the application of legislation in the industrial relations field knows that it is easy to get around it. Of course people will not be disadvantaged in promotion if they will not work on Sundays! Like hell they won't be! There are many ways in which one can disadvantage a person without breaking the law. That is what is very likely to happen.
We have also to remember that a great many retail workers are not in a trade union. Perhaps they should be, and we have talked about that before. But they are not, and that is the fact of the matter, and there is no evidence that they are likely to be. What protection will they receive? If they refuse to work in a number of cases contract will be terminated by direct or indirect means. Hardly ever do people obtain reinstatement at an industrial tribunal; they receive a pittance in compensation. That will be it, so let us not fool ourselves into believing that we have adequate worker protection. In my view, we have no such thing.
I wish in particular to pick up and to develop the issue of the small shops. I do not want to be offensive to the compromise of partial deregulation. In fact, I would not call it partial deregulation. If the shops can be open between 10.00 a.m. and 6 p.m. for a six-hour period to be chosen by the shopkeeper the main trading places will be open all day. Various shops will be open in different parts of the country and it will not be easy to know which of the six hours the shops are opting for. That is virtual deregulation. Those who want deregulation will support that, which is fair enough. However, we should not imagine that there is anything partial about it because there is not.
Who is behind all this? The noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, said that it was being done to meet the needs of the customers. In a sense, that is true. However, the people behind this great campaign are the superstores and the multiples. They are behind it for the respectable reason, from their point of view, of wanting to make more money. I believe in good commerce but they are not doing it for any other reason. Why should they?

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They are not doing it because they are in deep sympathy with the unhappy women who cannot possibly shop on a Saturday. Perhaps it is a little dangerous to shop in the evenings, but for a good deal of the year the evenings are not all that dark and a high percentage of women work only part time. Nevertheless, the shops are not opening for such people; they are opening to make more money.
We must answer the question: how on earth are they going to make more money? No more money will be spent because shops are open seven days a week. The same amount of money will be available to be spent among all the shops. The calculation of the superstores, which have backed the campaign with liberal glossy material, must be that they will increase their market share of the retail trade. That can be only at the expense of the small shops. No one has said where else it will come from; that is where it must come from.
We have had irrefutable figures that many small shops have closed down because of the development of Sunday trading and more and more will close. Like the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, I have been inundated with letters. I have had letters not from individuals but from, for example, the Asian community, which has built up a valuable service in the retail trade in small shops. I have had letters too from those who run sub-post offices, bakers and other small shops. They are an important element in the commerce and social life of this country. In rural areas the village shop and the sub-post office are more than places where people go to buy a loaf of bread. They are places where they go to have a good gossip, to get advice and to partake in social intercourse.
I use the small shops in Kennington, and valuable indeed they are. I do not like driving in London not because I am a Sabbatarian but because I am a remarkably bad driver. If those small shops close down I shall have to travel a considerable distance by bus and lug my goods home afterwards. I do that occasionally and I do not like it much—I like the small shops. They are a valuable part of our social fabric and an important part of people's livelihoods. If the small shops close down the loss of jobs will be considerable: no one can deny that. For economic reasons and in order to provide a service to customers who do not have cars and who live in inaccessible places where public transport is defective, we must keep the small shops open.
The deregulators have put forward an imaginative argument for believing that the small shops will not suffer. They say that the small shops do well between 7.30 a.m. and 10.00 a.m. on Sunday mornings. I cannot claim that I am often out at 7.00 a.m. on Sunday morning but when I am I do not see queues of people lining up to go into small shops. Of course, they may sell more newspaper at that time but their trade will be decimated and they will be ruined if their traditional weekday customers go to the superstores and pour goods into the boots of their cars. That is what will ruin the small shops. It is poor compensation to have the opportunity to be able to get up at 7.30 on a Sunday morning to sell newspapers.
But there is an even bigger argument for keeping Sunday special. I would not have used the term "Keep Sunday Special". I am an Anglican and a relatively
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frequently practising Anglican. I believe that the Churches will happily keep going whatever the shopping hours. I would have called the campaign "Keep the Day that is Different". We all need rhythm in our lives and we need a day that is unlike other days. At one time the Soviet Union tried to make the day that was different one day in 10. They found that it did not work and they had to return to one day in seven. Make no mistake, unless we back the policy of keeping a day that is different, the rhythm in our society will be destroyed. The rhythm in our life will go and we shall not be able to bring it back. The loss will be incalculable.
Lord Rippon of Hexham: I shall be brief. The one thing that has emerged from the debate is that everyone accepts that the present law is indefensible. The only people who are content with it are those who break it regularly, thus bringing the law into disrepute. Having listened to the whole debate, I believe that I could vote for any of the options and still keep Sunday special. Whatever view one takes of the position in Scotland or America, I would prefer total deregulation. Certainly, one can keep Sunday special in any event. Of the two options, it is wrong to call one "Keep Sunday Special" and the other "Anti Keep Sunday Special". I do not believe that I keep Sunday more special by shopping in a small shop rather than in a supermarket. There is a valid argument about the effect on small shops as regards the wrongly-named "Keep Sunday Special" option. I prefer the six-hour option because it is more workable; it has fewer anomalies than the "Keep Sunday Special" option.
The noble Viscount calls these issues "trivialities". It is these trivialities which bring the law into disrepute and ought if at all possible to be avoided. No doubt many issues that relate to hours and to the protection of workers can be dealt with at later stages. As I have listened to the debate today I have become more inclined to believe that we shall be wise to follow the option voted for by a substantial majority in the other place. Its Members have to answer to constituents as well as to their consciences and to the Bishops. They have weighed the advantages and disadvantages and have listened to their constituents. We are not discussing a constitutional issue and we cannot argue that there has been insufficient consultation. In my view, we have no grounds for asking the other place to look at. the matter again, even if it would do so. We want to put this matter to rest, to repeat a phrase, arid I would put it to rest as soon as possible by voting for what has been democratically chosen by the other place.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: I should like to make a few practical remarks. A number of rather emotional speeches have been made this afternoon on this issue. I will make one point that your Lordships may regard as being slightly emotional. I have been disturbed by some of the attitudes towards women that have been displayed in this Chamber this afternoon. When I first came to this House some of my prejudices made me suspect that women might be regarded as a rather superficial and foolish minority. On the whole, that has not been my experience, and in your Lordships' House women are treated with equality and seriousness. But, frankly, that

1035
has not been true of some of your Lordships' contributions this afternoon. My noble friend Lady Gould has already referred to the attitude displayed when women lobbied Parliament. Several disparaging remarks have been made about the inability of women consumers to shop during the hours that would be available to them if the deregulation Bill went through. My noble friends Lady Dean and Lady Gould have both made the point that women do not wish to shop at midnight on dark, urban streets.
I should like your Lordships to consider the point made by my noble friend Lady Gould at the end of her speech. She referred to the millions of women who were not represented in this House. I should also like your Lordships to treat those women who are Members of this House with your normal respect.
I turn to the practical reasons for supporting the Shopping Hours Reform Council reform. As chairman of the Shopping Hours Reform Council, I declare my interest. Surprisingly, I am not a major retailer but a consumer. I am one of those people who, had I thought it worth while, could easily have picked up my pen and written to my noble friend Lord Stoddart and told him how often I and my friends and colleagues shopped on Sunday. I am sorry that I did not do so, but I do not believe that it would have made any difference to his opinion.
However, in supporting the position of the Shopping Hours Reform Council, I make the following practical points. This is a question of the way of life. For consumers, shopkeepers and enforcement agencies it is a practical matter that requires a practical solution. Like any new law, the regulations must command popular respect. To be enforced effectively they must be seen to be straightforward and fair. I believe that the Bill in its current form meets those practical requirements. The clear-cut nature of the offence of opening your shop and the large fines now available to the courts for infringements will make the task of policing the new regulations much easier. Because the Bill as it stands takes account of the views of the people it is designed to serve, it avoids precisely the built-in obsolescence which has been clearly demonstrated to be the continuing problem of the Shops Act 1950. This new law will stick.
I know that your Lordships are anxious to vote. I should like briefly to apply the same test of popularity, practicality and permanence to both the amendments, which I hope your Lordships will reject. I consider first total deregulation. I accept the intellectual concept, which has been well advanced in your Lordships' House, that total deregulation removes many of the problems of the current law. I know that some of the economic theorists—and some of them are my noble friends on these Benches—shudder at less academically perfect solutions. But there are wider and—dare I say it? —more practical considerations. The position of the smaller shops, so often mentioned this afternoon, and the need to ensure that Sundays do still "feel different", are both covered by the compromise solution. I agree
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precisely with that expression used by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, although I do not agree with her conclusions. It is a genuine compromise solution.
In the real world of practical politics in which we all live we have to accept compromise. This is a compromise because it stands between the extremes of no regulation and heavy, complicated restriction. It balances the competing claims of different groups, ensuring that all shops can open and that consumers can have a fair and wide choice but that smaller businesses retain some competitive advantage. All compromises will disappoint somebody, but in this Bill the needs of as many people as possible have been taken into account, balanced and satisfied in a way which most people will regard as reasonable.
6.45 p.m.
The Earl of Halsbury: I believe that everybody should keep Sunday special in his own way. I believe that it is wrong for the state to intermeddle with people's freedom to come to an agreement with one another, either as between employer and employee or as between customer and shopkeeper. There is no room for the state to intermeddle.
We have heard much about shopkeepers, but nobody has yet mentioned the small shopping centre. It may be that the isolated small shopkeeper is not under as great a threat as has been indicated. Every working day of my life I come to your Lordships' House along a small back street. I can easily park my car. On the left are a liquor store, newsvendor and sub-postmaster, grocer, laun-drette and pub; on the right are a butcher, patisserie, hairdresser, dry cleaner and chemist's shop. It takes me 10 minutes to do my daily shopping and I am away to your Lordships' House. Nothing in the world will persuade me to go to a supermarket and wait in queue after queue to do a massive amount of shopping once a week, whether it be Sunday, Saturday, Friday or whatever. For that reason, I shall vote for a free-for-all and total deregulation. I believe that the complications of the middle course—the state of the art as it is now in the Bill—will make just as much mischief as the 1950 Act. I have already dealt with the question of keeping Sunday special. For that reason, I cannot go along with the noble Baroness, Lady Young.
Lord Elton: At this stage one should stand up almost only to be counted. However, I believe that there are one or two loose ends to which I must address myself. The noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, listed his local shops. I believe that research shows that he will be lucky if any of them are open five years after this Bill passes, if it passes in its present form.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jay, made a powerful statement about the interests of women in the opening of shops. Yet a poll carried out in September of last year revealed that, if the right question was asked, the answers were different. The answer to the question whether the respondent would have deregulation if it meant the closure of large numbers of small shops showed that 80 per cent. either would not have it or did not shop on Sundays anyway, and all the respondents were women. One can do almost anything with

1037
statistics. The noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, has done a good deal with statistics. He has almost convinced your Lordships that half the entire population shops on and off on Sundays. I have not bumped into many of them on the rare occasions when I have done so myself.
This is a debate about three things. We are concerned here with commercial interests. The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, put it succinctly and the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, illustrated the point. The noble Baroness said it was a question of who got the money that went into small shops. The noble Lord asked how one knew that there was pressure to buy. He said that one could see people flocking into small shops and one wanted to serve them. It is quite right that he should want to do that, but let us recognise that this is a commercial debate, in which vast amounts of support have come from large commercial organisations with a lot of money to persuade people that it is good for them to open on Sundays.
My noble and learned friend Lord Howe is not here now but I should like to correct him in the columns of Hansard. He said that the first regulation of shops by law was in 1936. It was in about 969 AD under King Athelstan. We have had not 44 Bills but a thousand years. This is a constitutional issue which will decide what the country will be like for both Christians and others. I am a determined Christian and I shall worship wherever I am, even if it is a concentration camp. The fact is that we need the rhythm of life which is set out in the Old Testament and which has been endorsed by the experience of the Soviet Union: that is, that there is a need for one day off in seven for all who can have it. If you force people to work under this legislation with its inadequate protection for employees and failure to refer to those who will be swept into the system, from car park attendants to rubbish collectors, you will change the face of this nation.
There was a little straw in the wind a fortnight ago. As soon as Oxford City Council learned that there would be opening on Sunday they decided to start the parking meters, charging all the people who would go to the service in the cathedral. Your Lordships have a decision to make today. Do you want six-day weeks or seven-day weeks? I hope that you vote for six.
Baroness Flather: I shall be brief—
Baroness Trumpington: I believe that it is the turn of the opposite side.
Lord McCarthy: I have a few words to say on behalf of those who did not know how they would vote before the debate began. We have heard a series of mutually contradictory and totally irreconcilable figures which have been thrown backwards and forwards and for which virtually no one has given the sources; although when some Members of the Committee tried to do so their arguments broke down. Moreover, most of the questions which have been asked by public opinion polls would not have passed an elementary examination on how to put questions. Therefore, we are none the wiser.
The noble Lord is right to say that it is all about market shares. Of course, it is not entirely about such
1038
shares; it is also about the sabbath and about the workers. Nonetheless, it turns on market shares. The reason my view today on market shares has hardened is very much because of what the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, said. The retail side of our economy has been stagnating since 1990. The only way that you can get any real improvement in trade is to take it from someone else. It has been impossible—indeed, insupportable—for many of our large stores to sit and watch the small traders creaming off the market by breaking the law. In the end, with every degree of reluctance, they decided that they had no alternative but to break the law themselves.
However, why are they not satisfied with breaking the law? Of course they are not satisfied to do so because they are good people. But I also suggest that they are not satisfied because they have got just about all that they can get from breaking the law. For example, what they cannot do while they break the law is to launch a promotion. They cannot flood the television screens with images telling us with every voice-over from Arthur Daly to Sir Anthony Hopkins that it is a "Sunday tea at Tescos" or, "Songs of Praise at Safeways" or even "Sundays means Sainsburys". That is what they want to do; and, indeed, that is what they will do the moment that the Bill is passed. That is why so many people are worried about it. We think that the whole thing will then escalate. Estimates (again, the basis of which we do not know) say that 75 per cent of shops will open. I believe that the figure may well be 100 per cent. Moreover, it will not just be shops; it will be all the other types of retail outlets that people have mentioned. That is what we worry about. Compromise and even deregulation would be alright; or at least that would not be so bad and we could put up with it if it stopped there. However, we do not think that it will.
I turn now to shopworkers and the legislation. I shall be tabling an amendment when we get to the relevant part of the Bill. I hope that all Members of the Committee who said today that they accept that the Bill is not perfect so far as concerns the individual worker will support that amendment. The only way that we can do anything for shopworkers—or, indeed, anyone else in that connection—is to do so at the point of entry. If it remains legal for an employer to ask a would-be employee "Will you work on Sundays" but the employee says "No, I don't think so" and the employer therefore does not engage him, it will mean that there is no protection under the Bill and no compensation or redress. Therefore, if the Bill retains its present form, I hope that noble Lords will support such an amendment.
Baroness Strange: I shall—
Noble Lords: Labour!
Baroness Strange: I have tried before to speak. However, I shall not speak for very long or say very much because much has already been said and I know exactly how Members of the Committee must feel. Nevertheless, I would like to add to what the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, said about rhythm. There is a daily rhythm of day and night. The body is at its lowest ebb between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. in the morning at the

1039
death hour, but then blackbirds sing, cocks crow, peacocks shout and you have all the hurly-burly of dawn and life awakening.
There is the rhythm of the seasons, of the ages of man. Those are major rhythms. However, we must not forget the shorter one in between—the rhythm of the week. Seven is the mystic number of God and man. There are seven stars in the sky and seven days in the week. If Sunday were like every other day there would be no punctuation to the week, no break, no pause and we might all go shooting out of time into a black hole from which there is no coming back.
Lord Plant of Highfield: The divergence of views expressed in the Committee shows how difficult it is to make public policy in a society in which there is a high degree of moral and cultural pluralism. I believe there are three possible ways forward. The first is essentially the one proposed by my noble friend Lord McIntosh of Haringey; namely, that since there is no agreement in society, everything must be left to choice and the role of the state is merely to provide the framework to facilitate individual choice. The second is the confessional approach, which I accept that the Bishops' Benches have not actually put forward but it is one which has been mentioned in some speeches: that the character of Sunday should somehow be determined by Christian beliefs as that is our heritage.
The third way is that we should look for some kind of reasonable compromise between the various options. That is the view I believe should be taken. It seems to me that the confessional view will not work because it is not sufficiently sensitive to the facts of moral pluralism. Indeed, as the noble Baroness, Lady Oppenheim, said, it is not realistic. I agree with that view, although I speak as a Christian.
However, I strongly disagree with my noble friend Lord McIntosh of Haringey about seeing the matter in an entirely deregulative way—that because we have no agreement in society everything must be made a matter of choice. Surely we cannot just accept that proposition; we must weigh up the consequences of the choices that we make, and make conjectures about what those consequences might be.
The idea that values can be reduced to matters of choice is a rather debilitating one for a party like the Labour Party where it wants to invoke and draw upon ideas like community and social justice which are essentially collective kinds of ideas. I believe that if we want to stick with such notions we must resist to some degree the idea that collective values can be reduced to matters of individual choice.
Those ideas will not recommend themselves to economic liberals like the noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, because he would regard community as an atavistic kind of concept and social justice as meaningless. However, if we take those ideas to be important, we must weigh up the consequences of deregulation. I do not want to repeat the nature of those consequences because other noble Lords have made such points most clearly. But they are consequences about communities in relation to small shops; they are
1040
consequences about social justice in relation to employment protection; and, they are also consequences about communities which will not be consulted and which will have no say about shops opening in their areas. It will be an entirely commercial decision and a community's way of life can be transformed overnight without that community having any voice in the matter whatever through the local council, which will have a largely book-keeping role.
It seems to me that the option of deregulation is something which should not be supported. However, the question then remains: what is the fair compromise if one rejects the confessional and the deregulatory view? My own feeling is that the proposals of the Shopping Hours Reform Council are not a fair compromise; indeed, they go too far down the road of deregulation and they do not solve many of the problems regarding communities and injustice which I outlined. For those reasons, and although I would have preferred something a little less restrictive, I shall be voting for the keep Sunday special option.
Baroness Flather: I shall be very brief in what I have to say. Much has been said about small shops and the danger to their existence. As soon as we start talking about small shops we start thinking in terms of their protection. Indeed, they must be protected at all costs. None of us, whatever option we support, is against small shops but we are for choice which the small shops do not give us at this stage. There is a parade of shops near me. The Asian shop, which is a general grocers, is open until 8 o'clock in the evening but the other shops in the parade do not stay open so late. It may be that the other shops will open at different times in future, but I am not sure about that. At present, if I need to go shopping on a Sunday, I cannot get everything I need from one small shop.
I have mentioned my following point before and I shall mention it again today; namely, the forecourt shops. They, not the large supermarkets, are the biggest threat to small shops. Esso has set aside over £3 million to develop large forecourt shops. I mentioned that on Second Reading and I repeat it again today. I would rather go to the forecourt shop which is situated just across a roundabout from my home than take the car to my nearest small shops. Of course the people who live near the small shops will still shop there if they do not have cars. No matter how many shops open, wherever they open, those people will still patronise their local shops. I repeat that the threat comes from forecourt shops. We must bear that in mind. Further, it amazes me that no one is concerned about the spiritual welfare of the people who work in small shops. I wonder whether the Committee is aware how hard the families of Asian shopkeepers work in their small shops. Has anyone ever said a word about them and about the women who work all hours in those Asian shops? It is all very well for Members of the Committee to receive letters from men but the Committee is unaware how hard women work in those small Asian shops and what unsocial hours they work. Do they not need any family life, any spiritual life or any rest on a Sunday? Are those small Asian shops not run by people in the same way as these large shops

1041
that we are discussing? If we want to keep Sunday special, we should shut all the shops. As the Committee is aware, I support the middle solution and I believe that that is the only way forward.
7 p.m.
Baroness Nicol: I have the distinct impression that the Committee wishes to vote before dinner. I simply wish to make a few points. I have discarded all my other points which have been made so well by my noble friends. I address one point, through the Committee, to my noble friend Lady Dean. She cannot rely on strengthening worker protection beyond what is in the Bill. I remind the Committee that today we have a free vote but after today the Whips will be on and there is no way that any measure to strengthen worker protection will get through this Chamber. If my noble friend is counting on that, I hope she will think again. What she sees in the Bill is what she will get and there will be no changes to it.
As far as I am aware, the United Road Transport Union has not been referred to in this debate. That union's members will be much affected by the deregulation which is being proposed. The general secretary of that union ended an appealing letter by stating, with regard to Sunday shopping,
"For many of my members it constitutes a huge threat to their family life, a further cause of potential alienation between children and their parents, and a sharpening of the focus on economic gains at the expense of social and religious values. Many of us believe that those traditional values are an oasis in the six-day desert of commerce".
That letter was sent by the general secretary of a union whose members will suffer greatly if this deregulation goes through. I have many other such letters but I shall not bore the Committee with them at this stage.
Earl Ferrers: Although there may be some Members of the Committee who still wish to contribute to this debate I think it is the general feeling of the Committee that the time has come for it to make a decision. I believe that all the options seem to have been canvassed and explained to the full. Members of the Committee might find it helpful if I were to reiterate, with some brevity and possibly some bluntness, how they should vote to secure the various options which are before them. I would only add that as the Committee contemplates the prospect of going through the Division Lobbies, those of its Members who have ever been Boy Scouts may remember the motto "Be Prepared", and those Members of the Committee who have never been Boy Scouts might well regret the omission but nevertheless abide by the motto.
Those Members of the Committee who wish to choose total deregulation should vote "Content" to Amendments Nos. 1 and 2 and "Not-Content" that Schedule 1 should stand part of the Bill. Those Members of the Committee who wish to choose the option of regulation which is proposed by the Keep Sunday Special Campaign and Retailers for Shops Act Reform should vote "Not-Content" to Amendment No. 1 but "Content" to Amendment No. 3. Those Members of the Committee who wish to agree with another place and choose the option of partial deregulation which is
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proposed by the Shopping Hours Reform Council should vote "Not-Content" to all the amendments but "Content" that Schedule 1 should stand part of the Bill. I would just add that those who wish for total deregulation should vote "Content" to Amendment No. 1 and those who wish either for partial deregulation which is in the Bill or for the Keep Sunday Special option should vote "Not-Content".
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: I hope I may interrupt my noble friend. The document. I have, which comes from the Printed Paper Office states, as regards keeping partial deregulation, "Not-Content" for Amendment No. 1, "Not-Content" for Amendment No. 2, but, contrary to what my noble friend says, "Content" for Clause 1 stand part, "Not-Content" for Amendment No. 3 and "Content" for Schedule 1 stand part.
Noble Lords: Oh!
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: I am reading from a document. I only want to find out what is right.
Earl Ferrers: I had hoped to make that as clear as possible. I can only repeat what I said so that the Committee should be fairly clear on this. Those Members of the Committee who wish to choose total deregulation should vote "Content" to Amendments Nos. 1 and 2 and "Not-Content" that Schedule 1 should stand part of the Bill. Those Members of the Committee who wish to choose the option of regulation which is proposed by the Keep Sunday Special Campaign and the Retailers for Shops Act Reform should vote "Not-Content" to Amendment No. 1, and Amendment No. 2 which is consequential upon it, but "Content" to Amendment No. 3. Those Members of the Committee who wish to agree with another place and choose the option of partial deregulation which is proposed by the Shopping Hours Reform Council should vote "Not-Content" to all the amendments but "Content" that Schedule 1 should stand part of the Bill, I hope that I have made that clear and in so doing—
Baroness Seear: We have had a long debate and I do not wish to suggest that we are all being rather stupid but I think it would be helpful if, after each vote, the Minister could tell us how we ought to vote on the next Division.
Earl Ferrers: The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, usually comes up with the most helpful suggestions. As a matter of fact I was proposing to do that but I wondered whether I might be considered to be rather patronising. I am delighted to know that I shall not be considered patronising and I shall endeavour to advise the Committee, as each vote comes, how it should vote. I might add that it would be extremely helpful if the Committee could accept what I say with the best of good grace on the understanding that it is supposed to be helpful. If other Members of the Committee keep on interrupting saying, "I thought it was something different", I suggest that we shall all become totally confused. I warned the Committee that those who had been Boy Scouts should "Be Prepared", and I repeat that.
Noble Lords: And Girl Guides!
Earl Ferrers: Yes, and Girl Guides. In the Civil Service you are taught that the male embraces the female—to which I might add that you do not have to join the Civil Service to do that.
In putting forward Amendment No. 1, I suggest to your Lordships that those who wish for total deregulation should vote "Content" to this provision; and those who wish either for partial deregulation (whish is in the Bill) or for the Keep Sunday Special option, should vote "Not-Content".
7.11 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 1) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 46; Not-Contents, 303.

Division No. 1

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Lyell, L. [Teller.]

Birkett, L.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Blyth, L.

Marsh, L.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Merrivale, L.

Brain, L.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.[Teller.]

Brightman, L.

Butterworth, L.

Morris, L.

Carnock, L.

O'Cathain, B.

Chapple, L.

Onslow, E.

Cochrane of Cults, L.

Palmer, L.

Craig of Radley, L.

Peston, L.

David, B.

Plummer of St. Marylebone, L.

Desai, L.

Quinton, L.

Dundonald, E.

Redesdale, L.

Glenarthur, L.

Rees, L.

Gray of Contin, L.

Robson of Kiddington, B.

Halsbury, E.

Sanderson of Bowden, L.

Harris of High Cross, L.

Slynn of Hadley, L.

Howe of Aberavon, L.

Stodart of Leaston, L.

Howie of Troon, L.

Tebbit, L.

Kinnoull, E.

Thomas of Swynnerton, L.

Lester of Herne Hill, L.

Wyatt of Weeford, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Borthwick, L.

Abinger, L.

Braine of Wheatley, L.

Addison, V.

Brentford, V.

Ailesbury, M.

Broadbridge, L.

Aldenham, L.

Brookeborough, V.

Aldington, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Allenby of Megiddo, V.

Burnham, L.

Annaly, L.

Cadman, L.

Ardwick, L.

Cameron of Lochbroom, L.

Ashbourne, L.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Astor of Hever, L.

Campbell of Eskan, L.

Astor, V.

Canterbury, Abp.

Attlee, E.

Carnarvon, E.

Balfour, E.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Banbury of Southam, L.

Carr of Hadley, L.

Bancroft, L.

Carter, L.

Banks, L.

Chalker of Wallasey, B.

Barber of Tewkesbury, L.

Charteris of Amisfield, L.

Barnett, L.

Chelmsford, Bp.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Chelmsford, V.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Chesham, L.

Bellwin, L.

Chester, Bp.

Beloff, L.

Chichester, Bp.

Birdwood, L.

Clanwilliam, E.

Blackstone, B.

Clark of Kempston, L.

Blake, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Bledisloe, V.

Clinton-Davis, L.

Boardman, L.

Cockfield, L.

Bolton, L.

Coleraine, L.

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Colnbrook, L.

Holderness, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Colwyn, L.

HolmPatrick, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Hooson, L.

Courtown, E.

Hothfield, L.

Craigavon, V.

Howe, E.

Craigmyle, L.

Howell, L.

Crathorne, L.

Hughes, L.

Crawshaw, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Crickhowell, L.

Inchyra, L.

Crook, L.

Jacques, L.

Cross, V.

Jakobovits, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Jay of Paddington, B.

Cumberlege, B.

Jay, L.

Darcy (de Knayth), B.

Jeffreys, L.

Davidson, V.

Jenkin of Roding, L.

De Freyne, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

De L'Isle, V.

Kenilworth, L.

Dean of Beswick, L.

Kenyon, L.

Dean of Harptree, L.

Kilbracken, L.

Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, B.

Killearn, L.

Derwent, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

Diamond, L.

Kimball, L.

Dixon-Smith, L.

Kinloss, Ly.

Donegall, M.

Kintore, E.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Lane of Horsell, L.

Dormer, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Downshire, M.

Lawrence, L.

Dudley, E.

Lincoln, Bp.

Eccles of Moulton, B.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Eccles, V.

Liverpool, Bp.

Eden of Winton, L.

Liverpool, E.

Ellenborough, L.

Lloyd of Berwick, L.

Elles, B.

London, Bp.

Elton, L.

Long, V.

Ennals, L.

Longford, E.

Faithfull, B.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Falkland, V.

Lucas, L.

Ferrers, E.

Mackay of Ardbrecknish, L.

Fitt, L.

Mackay of Clashfern, L. [Lord Chancellor.]

Flather, B.

MacLehose of Beoch, L.

Fraser of Carmyllie, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Gainford, L.

Manchester, D.

Gainsborough, E.

Mancroft, L.

Gallacher, L.

Manton, L.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Marlesford, L.

Geddes, L.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Geraint, L.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Gilmour of Craigmillar, L.

Mayhew, L.

Gladwyn, L.

McCarthy, L.

Glenamara, L.

McColl of Dulwich, L.

Goold, L.

McFarlane of Llandaff, B.

Goschen, V.

Merlyn-Rees, L.

Gould of Potternewton, B.

Mersey, V.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Miller of Hendon, B.

Greene of Harrow Weald, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Greenway, L.

Milverton, L.

Gridley, L.

Molloy, L.

Griffiths of Fforestfach, L.

Moore of Wolvercote, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Moran, L.

Hacking, L.

Morris of Castle Morris, L.

Haig, E.

Mottistone, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Mountevans, L.

Hamwee, B.

Mountgarret, V.

Hanworth, V.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Harding of Petherton, L.

Mulley, L.

Harlech, L. Harmsworth, L.

Munster, E.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Murray of Epping Forest, L.

Harrowby, E.

Mutton of Lindisfarne, L.

Harvington, L.

Napier and Ettrick, L.

Haskel, L.

Nelson, E.

Hayhoe, L.

Newcastle, Bp.

Hayter, L.

Nicol, B.

Hemphill, L.

Norfolk, D.

Henderson of Brompton, L.

Northbourne, L.

Henley, L.

Norwich, Bp.

Hesketh, L.

Ogmore, L.

Hilton of Eggardon, B.

Oppenheim-Barnes, B.

Hindlip, L.

Oxford, Bp.

1045

Oxfuird, V.

St. John of Bletso, L.

Park of Monmouth, B.

St. John of Fawsley, L.

Pearson of Rannoch, L.

Stallard, L.

Peel, E

Stewartby, L.

Perry of Southwark, B.

Stoddart of Swindon, L. [Teller.]

Perry of Walton, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Peterborough, Bp.

Strange, B.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Strathcarron, L.

Plant of Highfield, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Plan of Writtle, B.

Strathmore and Kinghorne, E.

Portsmouth, Bp.

Suffield, L.

Prentice, L.

Swansea, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Swinfen, L.

Pym, L.

Swinton, E.

Rankeillour, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Rawlinson of Ewell, L.

Teviot, L.

Reay, L

Teynham, L.

Rees-Mogg, L.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Rennell, L.

Thurlow, L.

Renton, L.

Tollemache, L.

Ripon, Bp.

Tonypandy, V.

Rippon of Hexham, L.

Torrington, V.

Robertson of Oakridge, L.

Trefgame, L.

Rochester, L.

Ullswater, V.

Rodger of Earlsferry, L.

Varley, L.

Romney, E.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Ryder of Warsaw, B.

Wade of Chorlton, L.

Sainsbury of Preston Candover, L.

Wakeham, L. [Lord Privy Seal.]

Saint Oswald, L.

Walker of Worcester, L.

Savile, L.

Weatherill, L.

Seccombe, B.

Wharton, B.

Seear, B.

White, B.

Serota, B.

Whitelaw, V.

Shannon, E.

Wigoder, L.

Sharp of Grimsdyke, L.

Wigram, L.

Sharpies, B.

Wilberforce, L.

Sheffield, Bp.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Simon of Glaisdale, L.

Winchester, Bp.

Skelmersdale, L.

Wise, L.

Smith, L.

Wolfson of Sunningdale, L.

Southwark, Bp.

Worcester, Bp.

St. Davids, V.

Wynford, L.

St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich, Bp.

Young, B. [Teller.]

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
7.27 p.m.
Earl Ferrers Earl Ferrers had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 2:
Page 1, line 9, leave out ("on the appointed day").
The noble Earl said: As Amendment No. 2 is consequential upon Amendment No. 1 and as Members of the Committee have decided that Amendment No. 1 has not been carried, I shall not move Amendment No. 2.
[Amendment No. 2 not moved.]
On Question, Whether Clause 1 shall stand part of the Bill?
Earl Ferrers: In deference to the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, who wishes guidance, as do other Members of the Committee, the Question whether Clause 1 shall stand part of the Bill is essential, whatever views Members of the Committee have on the various options. I therefore suggest that the matter be taken formally.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Schedule 1 [Restrictions on Sunday opening of large shops]:
Earl Ferrers Earl Ferrers moved Amendment No. 3:
Leave out Schedule 1 and insert the following new schedule:
("SCHEDULE 1 REGULATION OF SUNDAY TRADING
Interpretation
1.—(1) In this Schedule—
"ancient monument" means a scheduled monument within the meaning of the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979,
"confectionery" includes ice cream,
"exempt shop" shall be construed in accordance with paragraphs 3 to 8 below,
"internal floor area", in relation to a shop, means the internal floor area of so much of the shop as consists of or is comprised in a building,
"intoxicating liquor" and "licensed premises" have the same meaning as in the Licensing Act 1964,
"London exempt area" has the meaning given by paragraph 9 below,
"medicinal product" and "registered pharmacy" have the same meaning as in the Medicines Act 1968,
"relevant floor area", in relation to a shop, means so much of the internal floor area as is attributable to any area as respects which one or more of the following conditions is satisfied at any time during the week ending with the Sunday in question—

(a) customers have access to the area,

(b) it is used for the display of goods, or

(c) it is used for the serving of customers,

"retail trade or business" includes—

(a) the business of a barber or hairdresser,

(b) the sale of refreshments or intoxicating liquor,

(c) the business of hiring goods, and

(d) retail sales by auction, and

"shop" includes any premises where any retail trade or business is carried on.

(2) At any time when a shop is open for the purpose of displaying goods to customers with a view to the subsequent sale or hire of those goods, the shop shall be taken for the purposes of this Schedule to be open for the serving of customers, even though customers are unable to buy or hire goods at that time.

(3) At any time when a shop is not open to the public, but customers are admitted to the shop (whether by invitation, as members of a club or otherwise) for the purposes of a retail trade or business carried on there, the shop shall be taken for the purposes of this Schedule to be open for the serving of customers.

(4) No part of a sea-going vessel shall be treated as a shop for the purposes of this Schedule.

Prohibition of Sunday trading in shops
2. —(1) A shop shall not be open on Sunday for the serving of customers unless—

(a) it is an exempt shop,

(b) the Sunday in question falls within the period beginning with 27th November and ending with 24th December in any year,

(c) a notice under paragraph 9(1) of Schedule 2 to this Act (shops occupied by persons observing the Jewish Sabbath) has effect in relation to the shop, or

(d) the shop is situated in a London exempt area.

(2) A shop which is situated in a London exempt area shall not be open for the serving of customers on Sunday after 2 p.m., unless any of paragraphs (a) to (c) of sub-paragraph (1) above apply.
Shops exempt irrespective of size
3.—(1) A shop is an exempt shop by virtue of this paragraph if—

(a) the trade or business carried on in the shop consists wholly or mainly of any one or more of the following—

(i) the sale on licensed premises of intoxicating liquor,

(ii) the sale of meals or refreshments for consumption on the premises on which they are sold, and

(iii) the sale of meals or refreshments prepared to order for immediate consumption off those premises,

(b) the trade or business carried on in the shop consists wholly or mainly of the sale of intoxicating liquor in such circumstances that the sales are not "sales by retail" within the meaning of the Licensing Act 1964,

1047

(c) the shop is a registered pharmacy and is open only for the sale (or supply otherwise than by way of sale) of medicinal products or surgical appliances,

(d) it is open only for either or both of the following—

(i) the sale of fuel for motor vehicles or for vessels or of lubricants for motor vehicles or for vessels, and

(ii) the hire of motor vehicles, bicycles, trailers or vessels,

(e) it is at a designated airport and is situated in a part of the airport to which sub-paragraph (3) below applies,

(f) it is at a service area within the meaning of the Highways Act 1980,

(g) it is open only for the provision of postal services,

(h) it is open only for the business of a funeral undertaker, or

(j) it is open only for the sale of food, stores or other necessaries required by any person for a vessel or aircraft on its arrival at, or immediately before its departure from, a port or airport.

(2) In determining whether a shop falls within sub-paragraph (1) (a) or (b) above, regard shall be had to the nature of the trade or business carried on there on weekdays as well as to the nature of the trade or business carried on there on Sunday.

(3) This sub-paragraph applies to every part of a designated airport, except any part which is not ordinarily used by persons travelling by air to or from the airport.

(4) In this paragraph "designated airport" means an airport designated for the purposes of this paragraph by an order made by the Secretary of State, as being an airport at which there appears to him to be a substantial amount of international passenger traffic.

(5) The power to make an order under sub-paragraph (4) above shall be exercisable by statutory instrument.

(6) Any order made under section 1(2) of the Shops (Airports) Act 1962 and in force at the commencement of this Schedule shall, so far as it relates to England and Wales, have effect as if made also under sub-paragraph (4) above, and may be amended or revoked as it has effect for the purposes of this paragraph by an order under sub-paragraph (4) above.

Certain small shops exempt irrespective of location
4.—(1) A shop is an exempt shop by virtue of this paragraph if—

(a) the relevant floor area of the shop does not exceed 280 square metres,

(b) the shop is a shop of any of the types specified in the first column of the Table below,

(c) the trade or business carried on in the shop (in this paragraph referred to as "the relevant trade") consists wholly or mainly of the sale or hire of goods of any one or more of the descriptions specified in relation to that type of shop in the second column of that Table, and

(d) any further condition specified in relation to that type of shop in the third column of that Table is satisfied.

(2) In this paragraph, "sale", in relation to a chemist's shop, includes supply otherwise than by way of sale.

(3) This paragraph has effect subject to paragraph 8 below.

TABLE

Type of shop

Goods

Further condition

A grocer's shop.

Groceries.

—

A convenience shop.

Groceries, confectionery and domestic cleaning materials.

The relevant trade includes the sale of goods falling within each of the descriptions specified in the second column.

A newsagent's shop.

Newspapers, periodicals and confectionery.

The relevant trade includes the sale of goods falling within each of the descriptions specified in the second column.

A video recordings shop.

Video recordings.

—

Certain large shops exempt irrespective of location
5. — (1) A shop is an exempt shop by virtue of this paragraph if—

(a) it would be an exempt shop by virtue of paragraph 4 above as a nursery, garden centre, motor supplies shop, cycle supplies shop, motor and cycle supplies shop or do-it-yourself shop but for the fact that its relevant floor area exceeds 280 square metres, and

(b) it is open only for the sale or hire of permitted goods.

(2) In sub-paragraph (1) above, "permitted goods" means any of the following—

cycle supplies and cycle accessories;

garden supplies and garden accessories;

materials and tools suitable for use in the construction, repair or decoration of the structure of dwellings;

motor supplies and motor accessories; and

plants and cut flowers.

Certain small shops exempt in certain locations
6. — (1) A shop is an exempt shop by virtue of this paragraph if—

(a) the relevant floor area of the shop does not exceed 280 square metres,

(b) the location of the shop is one of those specified in the first column of the Table below, and

(c) where certain descriptions of goods are specified in relation to that location in the second column of that Table, the trade or business carried on in the shop consists wholly or mainly of the sale or hire of goods of any one or more of those descriptions.

(2) This paragraph has effect subject to paragraph 8 below.

Table

Location

Goods

At a gallery, museum, garden, park, zoo, aquarium or ancient monument or in any building or area designated as a tourist attraction for the purposes of this Act by the local authority for the area in which it is situated.

Souvenirs, goods having some local association and confectionery.

On a farm, smallholding, allotment or similar place.

Agricultural produce of that place.

At any place where any sport or game is played or carried on.

Goods directly connected with the sport or game played or carried on at that place.

Location

Goods

In a railway station.

Books, newspapers and periodicals.

In a theatre, cinema or other place of entertainment.

Confectionery, programmes and items similar to programmes.

In a hospital.

—

In a terminal building at a harbour, seaport or hoverport.

—

Very small shops
7.—(1) A shop is an exempt shop by virtue of this paragraph if its internal floor area does not exceed 10 square metres.
(2) This paragraph has effect subject to paragraph 8(2) below.
Supplementary provisions as to exemption
8.—(1) In determining for the purposes of paragraph 4(1) (c) or 6(1) (c) above whether the trade or business carried on in a shop consists wholly or mainly of the sale or hire of goods of particular descriptions or for the purposes of paragraph 4(1) (d) above whether that trade or business includes the sale of such goods—

(a) regard shall be had to the nature of the trade or business carried on in the shop on weekdays as well as to the nature of the trade or business carried on there on Sunday, and

(b) there shall be disregarded any activity mentioned in paragraph 3(1) (a), (g) or (j) above.

(2) Where customers can obtain access to a shop ("the inner shop") only by passing through another shop ("the outer shop"), the inner shop cannot be an exempt shop by virtue of paragraph 4, 6 or 7 above unless the outer shop is also an exempt shop.
London exempt areas
9.—(1) For the purposes of this Schedule "London exempt area" means, subject to sub-paragraph (2) below, any area in relation to which an order under section 54 of the Shops Act 1950 (special provisions for London) had effect immediately before the commencement of this Schedule.
(2) The local authority within whose area any London exempt area falls may by order provide that all or a specified part of that area is to cease to be a London exempt area.
(3) A local authority shall, before making any order under sub-paragraph (2) above, give public notice of their intention to make the order, and the notice must specify a period (not being less than four weeks) within which objections may be made to the making of the proposed order, and if, after taking into consideration any objections they have received, the local authority are satisfied that it is expedient to make the order, they may make the order.
Offences
10.—(1) If paragraph 2(1) above is contravened in relation to a shop, the occupier of the shop shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £50,000.
(2) If paragraph 2(2) above is contravened in relation to a shop, the occupier of the shop shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 2 on the standard scale.
11. Where a person is charged with having contravened paragraph 2(2) above by reason of his having served a customer after 2 p.m., it shall be a defence to prove that the customer was in the shop before that time and left not later than half an hour after that time.")
Earl Ferrers: I beg to move Amendment No. 3. Those who wish to vote for the Keep Sunday Special option should vote "Content" for the amendment. Those who wish to vote against keeping Sunday special or in favour of partial deregulation, which is in the Bill, should vote, "Not-Content". I commend the amendment.
7.29 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 3) shall be agreed to?
*Their Lordships divided: Contents, 151; Not-Contents, 206.

Division No. 2

CONTENTS

Abinger, L.

Lawrence, L.

Ailesbury, M.

Lincoln, Bp.

Aldenham, L.

Liverpool, Bp.

Ardwick, L.

London, Bp.

Ashbourne, L.

Long, V.

Banbury of Southam, L.

Longford, E.

Banks, L.

Lucas, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Mackay of Clashfern, L. [Lord

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Chancellor]

Blake, L.

Marlesford, L.

Boardman, L.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Bolton, L.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Braine of Wheatley, L.

Mayhew, L.

Brentford, V.

McCarthy, L.

Brightman, L.

McColl of Dulwich, L.

Broadbridge, L.

McFarlane of Llandaff, B.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Campbell of Eskan, L.

Molloy, L.

Canterbury, Abp.

Moore of Wolvercote, L.

Carr of Hadley, L.

Moran, L.

Carter, L.

Morris of Castle Morris, L.

Charteris of Amisfield, L.

Mottistone, L.

Chelmsford, Bp.

Mountgarret, V.

Chester, Bp.

Murray of Epping Forest, L.

Chichester, Bp.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Clanwilliam, E.

Newcastle, Bp.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Nicol, B.

Cockfield, L.

Norfolk, D.

Coleraine, L.

Northbourne, L.

Craigmyle, L.

Norwich, Bp.

Cross, V.

Ogmore, L.

Darcy (de Knayth), B.

Orr-Ewing, L.

David, B.

Oxford, Bp.

De Freyne, L.

Park of Monmouth, B.

Dean of Beswick, L.

Pearson of Rannoch, L.

Dean of Harptree, L.

Peterborough, Bp

Diamond, L.

Plant of Highfield, L.

Donegall, M.

Platt of Writtle, B.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Portsmouth, Bp.

Dormer, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Rawlinson of Ewell, L.

Elles, B.

Rees-Mogg, L.

Elton, L.

Sennell, L.

Faithfull, B.

Renton, L.

Falkland, V.

Ripon, Bp.

Fitt, L.

Robertson of Oakridge, L.

Gainford, L.

Rochester, L.

Gallacher, L.

Romney, E.

Geraint, L.

Ryder of Warsaw, B.

Gladwyn, L.

Savile, L.

Glenamara, L.

Seear, B.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Serota, B.

Greene of Harrow Weald, L.

Sheffield, Bp.

Greenhill of Harrow, L.

Smith, L.

Griffiths of Fforestfach, L.

Southwark, Bp.

Hanworth, V.

St. Davids, V.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich,

Harrowby, E.

Bp.

Harvington, L.

St. John of Fawsley, L.

Hayhoe, L.

Stallard, L.

Hayter, L.

Stewartby, L.

Hemphill, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Hilton of Eggardon, B.

Strange, B.

Hooson, L.

Suffield, L.

Howell, L. [Teller.]

Swinfen, L.

Jacques, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Jakobovits, L.

Teviot, L.

Judd, L.

Teynham, L.

Killearn, L.

Tonypandy, V.

Kinloss, Ly.

Varley, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

1051

Weatherill, L.

Winchester, Bp.

White, B.

Wolfson of Sunningdale, L.

Wigram, L.

Worcester, Bp.

Wilberforce, L.

Wynford, L.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Young, B. [Teller.]

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Geddes, L.

Addison, V.

Gilmour of Craigmillar, L.

Aldington, L.

Glenarthur, L.

Allenby of Megiddo, V.

Goold, L.

Annaly, L.

Goschen, V.

Archer of Weston-Super-Mare, L.

Gould of Potternewton, B.

Arran, E.

Gowrie, E.

Astor of Hever, L.

Gray of Contin, L.

Astor, V.

Greenway, L.

Attlee, E.

Gridley, L.

Balfour, E.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Bancroft, L.

Hacking, L.

Barber of Tewkesbury, L.

Haig, E.

Barnett, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Bellwin, L.

Halsbury, E.

Beloff, L.

Hamwee, B.

Birdwood, L.

Harding of Petherton, L.

Birkett, L.

Harlech, L.

Blackstone, B.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Bledisloe, V.

Harmsworth, L.

Borthwick, L.

Harris of High Cross, L.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Haskel, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Henderson of Brompton, L.

Brain, L.

Henley, L.

Brookeborough, V.

Hesketh, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Hindlip, L.

Bumham, L.

Holderness, L.

Butterworth, L.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Cadman, L.

HolmPatrick, L.

Cameron of Lochbroom, L.

Hothfield, L.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Howe of Aberavon, L.

Carlisle of Bucklow, L.

Howe, E.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Howie of Troon, L.

Carnarvon, E.

Hughes, L.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Carnock, L.

Inchyra, L.

Chalker of Wallasey, B.

Jay, L.

Chapple, L.

Jay of Paddington, B. [Teller.]

Chelmsford, V.

Jeffreys, L.

Chesham, L.

Jenkin of Roding, L.

Clark of Kempston, L.

Kenilworth, L.

Clinton-Davis, L.

Kenyon, L.

Cochrane of Cults, L.

Kilbracken, L.

Colnbrook, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Kimball, L.

Colwyn, L.

Kinnoull, E.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Kintore, E.

Courtown, E.

Lane of Horsell, L.

Craig of Radley, L.

Lester of Herne Hill, L.

Craigavon, V.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Crathorne, L.

Liverpool, E.

Crickhowell, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Crook, L.

Lloyd of Berwick, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Cumberlege, B.

Lyell, L.

Davidson, V.

Mackay of Ardbrecknish, L.

De L'Isle, V.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, B.

MacLehose of Beoch, L.

Derwent, L.

Manchester, D.

Desai, L.

Mancroft, L. [Teller.]

Dilhorne, V.

Manton, L.

Dixon-Smith, L.

Marsh, L.

Downshire, M.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Dudley, E.

McNair, L.

Dundonald, E.

Merlyn-Rees, L.

Eccles of Moulton, B.

Merrivale, L.

Eccles, V.

Mersey, V.

Eden of Winton, L.

Miller of Hendon, B.

Ferrers, E.

Milverton, L.

Flather, B.

Monson, L.

Fraser of Carmyllie, L.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Gainsborough, E.

Morris, L.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Mountevans, L.

1052

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Sharp of Grimsdyke, L.

Moyne, L.

Sharpies, B.

Mulley, L.

Shaughnessy, L.

Munster, E.

Simon of Glaisdale, L.

Napier and Ettrick, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Nelson, E.

Slynn of Hadley, L.

O'Cathain, B.

St. John of Bletso, L.

Onslow, E.

Strabolgi, L.

Oppenheim-Barnes, B.

Strathcarron, L.

Oxfuird, V.

Strathclyde, L.

Palmer, L.

Strathmore and Kinghorne, E.

Peel, E.

Swansea, L.

Perry of Southwark, B.

Swinton, E.

Peston, L.

Tebbit, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Plummer of St. Marylebone, L.

Thomson of Monifieth, L.

Prentice, L.

Tollemache, L.

Pym, L.

Tordoff, L.

Quinton, L.

Torrington, V.

Rankeillour, L.

Trefgame, L.

Reay, L.

Trumpington, B.

Redesdale, L.

Ullswater, V.

Rees, L.

Wade of Chorlton, L.

Rippon of Hexham, L.

Wakeham, L. [Lord Privy Seal.]

Robson of Kiddington, B.

Wedgwood, L.

Rodger of Earlsferry, L.

Wharton, B.

Sainsbury of Preston Candover, L.

Whitelaw, V.

Sanderson of Bowden, L.

Wigoder, L.

Seccombe, B.

Wise, L.

Shannon, E.

Wyatt of Weeford, L.

[*The Tellers for the Contents reported 151 names. The Clerks recorded 150 names.]
Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
7.43 p.m.
House resumed: Clause 1 and Schedule 1 reported without amendment, and recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House.

Gas Industry: Customer Protection
7.45 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick Lord Dean of Beswick rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will ensure that customers and employees within the gas industry are properly protected as competition is introduced into the domestic gas market.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I see from the Chamber that my powers of eloquence on the subject are not sufficient to hold a near record crowd. Nevertheless, I believe that the Question that I have asked is a very important one. It refers to customers and employees within the gas industry being properly protected in the light of the introduction of competition. Rather than speak of those people who are employed directly by British Gas, in this debate I should like to make a special feature of a consideration of those employed in the other sectors of the industry—those who supply the components and are and have been for years totally dependent on British Gas for their survival. I want to make the case for employees in two particular factories. One is in Stretford, Manchester, at Schlumberger; and the other is Smith's of south London. I feel that they have been unfortunately treated by British Gas.
I know that there are other issues in relation to British Gas, and my comrades and noble friends Lady Dean and Lord Stoddart and Lord Prys-Davies will cover a wider remit in their remarks than I shall perhaps touch on. I

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also start from the premise that British Gas has been placed in a difficult situation by the Government's unwise decision to widen the scope of further privatisation, hiving off services in which British Gas is already doing well. There are signs that if the consumer alone is considered, it may not be such a successful exercise. The cherries that are ripe could be picked off, and all that would be left for British Gas would be to continue to support those areas which are not so lucrative. It would have to sustain those services by putting up prices. Other people may deal with that situation.
I live in Manchester, and the two factories were brought to my notice through the press. I was able to get in touch with people in south London with regard to Smith's. Over a number of years, those two factories have manufactured meters of a particular type for the Gas Board. They knew that the time would come when those meters would be phased out. The workforce accepted that situation. They were given a date in the middle of 1995, by which time the use of the meter would cease and the workers would be made redundant. As I said, they are not employees of British Gas; they are employed solely in the making of gas meters.
Suddenly after Christmas, without any prior negotiation or discussion, British Gas brought the programme forward by 12 months. That meant that people who were preparing themselves for bad news in 1995, were suddenly confronted with it immediately. Taking the two factories in total, this means the loss of 1,000 jobs. Some noble Lords may have been present when I quoted the fact that in January this year we lost 13,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector of industry. The British Gas decision will mean that, in June or July, whenever the decision is finalised, there will be another increase in the loss of manufacturing jobs. It is not the best image and certainly not the type of industrial behaviour that we have come to expect in this country.
I realise that the days of the might of the trade unions are past. But surely, in terms of the social consequences and for the sake of humanity, a company like British Gas, with all its resources, could afford on this occasion to present a more human face rather than, as Mr. Heath once said, "the unacceptable face of capitalism". All I am seeking to do is to ask the Minister to use his best endeavours with British Gas to persuade them to stick to the original plan—that is, to keep the promise it made. I do not think that at this point in time, that is asking too much.
I said that the matter was brought to my attention through articles in the local press. I sought advice from the Member of Parliament for the area, Mr. Tony Lloyd, and I must compliment Mr. Lloyd upon the way he dealt with the situation. I do not believe that I would have been as well briefed tonight were it not for the fact that he provided me with some of my material. Some weeks ago we discussed the matter and paid a visit to Ofgas to try to redeem the situation. The discussions ended by my saying to the new director general and her staff, "What you are telling me is that in fact British Gas pulled a fast one". They nodded their heads and said that that was the case. All I ask is that the Minister uses his
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best endeavours to persuade the British Gas board to keep to its original programme and to the promise it made.
During the discussions that we had on the subject it came across quite clearly that it was questionable whether British Gas were right in opting for the new type of meter. From my information, the current decision by British Gas to extend its meter replacement programme by one year and to accelerate the introduction of the new solid state meter is a high-risk strategy. First, the new solid state meter technology has been given very limited field testing in gas customers' homes. For British Gas to decide to move over to buying only the new type meters in quantities of several hundred thousands on the basis of a few hundred meters on trial and laboratory tests seems to me to be a high-risk decision.
I am told that the meters that were tested were tested only in the homes of British Gas employees. To say the least, that is rather less selective than it ought to be. We must ask ourselves: what if the new technology fails? What is British Gas's fallback position? All the manufacturers of traditional meters who supplied British Gas for many years, as I said earlier, have had their contracts abruptly ended and are in the process of making nearly 1,000 people redundant as a result of that sudden decision by British Gas to turn off the supply of conventional gas meters and switch completely to the new technology meters.
The second uncertainty is the ability of the suppliers of the new solid state meters to meet the high volumes demanded by British Gas this year, but more especially in 1995 and 1996. To my knowledge neither of the two suppliers—Siemens and Eurometer, who have some form of collaboration with British Gas—has previously supplied British Gas, and the speed with which they are being asked to "ramp up" production could, again, lead to problems. Without doubt there is some risk of the new gas meter manufacturers not being able to meet the programme set down by Ofgas on behalf of the customers in agreement with British Gas.
What of the consumer? Already subjected to the iniquities of additional costs as a result of the introduction of VAT on fuel bills, including gas, it is the gas consumers who will have to bear the additional costs of the decision to extend the replacement programme; it is the gas consumers and customers who will be faced with the potential additional costs if British Gas's risk strategy goes wrong.
It seems to me only sensible that British Gas should take a more careful and structured approach to the introduction of the new meters. It would be better for all concerned for the company to revert to its original plan steadily to phase out the traditional meters and, once proven in the field, to introduce the new meters in a slow and planned manner. I seriously urge the management of British Gas to reconsider its hasty decision and to reintroduce a plan with more thought and sense, and less risk.
When one talks in terms of introducing a meter which is vital to the customer receiving an adequate and accurate service, even if the new meter is successful the difference in the cost between the two is only around 1

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per cent. either way. However, I made a specific case and I have had a fair crack at your Lordships' House time tonight in speaking for 12 minutes. In closing, therefore, I ask the Minister to use his best endeavours —not simply to give me an answer to what I have said, but to use his best endeavours —to try to soften the blow for those 1,000 people who have been badly let down by British Gas. I ask him to see whether or not British Gas can be persuaded, in the interests of its public image, to go back to the original schedule it promised in the first place.
7.58 p.m.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Dean of Beswick for putting this item on the Order Paper, and for asking his Question regarding competition within the domestic gas market. We thank him also for bringing to the attention of the House the problems which will be faced by the 1,000 people he mentioned. My sympathy goes out to them, and I hope that the reply of the Minister will be a good and adequate one which will help them.
I want to range rather wide over the question of competition within the domestic gas area. Before I do so, I should perhaps declare an interest in that I am an adviser to UNISON, which has members in the gas industry. When the Government decided to privatise the gas industry they were clearly influenced by the then chairman, Sir Denis Rooke, who believed that British Gas would best serve the interests of the consumer as a single entity under proper public regulation. And so it was. That is what happened when the Bill came forward. That was how the Government decided to denationalise the gas industry. At that time, I was in charge of energy from the Opposition Front Bench; and I am quite sure that during the passage of the Gas Bill the Government resisted all attempts, even by their own supporters, to introduce competition into the Bill. Now, apparently, they have done a U-turn and intend to open the gas market to competition within two years. That is against the recommendation of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, which believes that competition should not be introduced until about the turn of the century.
This unedifying dash risks destabilising a well-managed industry. It will cause uncertainty, fear, frustration and hardship among staff of all grades who have served the industry well, many of them over a very long time. Furthermore, it will also affect people in many other industries; and my noble friend mentioned one of them. British Gas has already announced more than 25,000 redundancies; but employment in associated industries will also be adversely affected. Indeed, British Gas, as part of its reaction to competition, has stopped all United Kingdom investment. The Society of British Gas Industries has calculated that this cutback has cost its industry some 25,000 jobs. So we are talking now not about 25,000 jobs in the gas industry but an extra 25,000 jobs, making 50,000 in all. That is an enormous and alarming consequence of the introduction of competition into the domestic gas market.
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Furthermore, British Gas has decided to abolish regions, which will not only have an adverse effect on staff but customers as well, since the Gas Consumers Council will have no region to liaise and work with. I am connected with UNISON, but the adverse effect will be felt by all types of staff operating in other unions as well. Operating, maintenance, service and administrative staff will all feel the cold wind of redundancy, and seemingly for no good purpose since the regulator, Ofgas, has agreed to a price increase by allowing prices to be adjusted by RPI-4 instead of RPI-5. So apparently all this competition will do is put up prices—or at least that is what it seems like on the face of it. The noble Viscount who is to reply may very well tell me a different story, but it seems odd that competition which is supposed to reduce prices will actually, on the face of it, increase prices from RPI-5 to RPI-4.
When competition is introduced, it is likely that teams of expert people will be broken up, showrooms will close and the public will get a worse service rather than a better one. We must remember that British Gas provides rigorous training for its staff, particularly those concerned with safety. Are the Government concerned that safety standards may not be maintained if British Gas and its competitors become engaged in cut-throat competition? Are they confident that British Gas itself will be able to maintain its high level of safety and training in the face of competition from new entrants? After all, these new entrants will be cherry picking high-density markets and feeling under no obligation to maintain such high standards as have been maintained hitherto by British Gas. Indeed, British Gas has already intimated that it can maintain its high standards of service and safety only if all the new entrants to the gas market have to meet the same standards and work to the same rules. So we must take that threat as a real one.
Finally, I should like to know how matters relating to bad debts, cut-offs and social responsibilities to the old, to children, to the sick and to the disabled are to be reconciled with this new era of competition. How are these new firms to meet these obligations? How will they be made to meet their obligations? Will they be under the same restrictions as British Gas? What will happen? We must have an assurance from the Government tonight that these people will in no way be disadvantaged by the gadarene gallop to premature competition. I hope that we can get some answers to those questions.
8.6 p.m.
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde: My Lords, I join my noble friend Lord Stoddart in thanking my noble friend Lord Dean of Beswick for introducing this short debate. The Question refers to customers and employees within the gas industry. Of course, the only benchmark we have at the moment is British Gas and it is on that aspect that I should like to concentrate. Having said that, and in talking about employees, I received this morning some unsought advice from a public relations company acting for one of the competitors in the industry. It provided a full brief. Not one word of it referred to the position of the employees in the industry.

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As my noble friend said, British Gas has announced the loss of 25,000 jobs. That is just under 40 per cent. of its present workforce. In making the announcement it carried out no consultation with the unions. Indeed, the actual details were revealed only after pressure from the GMB and other unions whose members work in the industry. There was another worrying factor in that information. British Gas said that the average redundancy payment would be about £30,000 plus £10,000 for pension. The amount in the accounts is £1.3 billion. Taking the average, and looking at the total figure, it amounts to a total of 32,500 lost jobs, not 25,000. Clearly, some answers and assurances need to be given in that area. Those will not be voluntary redundancies. British Gas is seeking people as young as 35 to go as a result of the introduction of changes and competition.
We talk about employees and consumers as if they were two different entities. They are not. Employees are also consumers. It is in the consumer area that we must be concerned as well. On OECD figures the average of domestic gas utilisation in Europe is between 25 per cent. and 30 per cent. of the energy used. Here in the United Kingdom just under 50 per cent. of domestic users of energy use gas. Therefore, the supply of energy to such a large part of our community makes it very important that we have proper consumer protection. That is of concern when one bears in mind that the Monopolies and Mergers Commission report came out not for a break-up of British Gas but for a divestment of its trading arm.
It is quite clear that one of the ways British Gas has been able to run its operations has been by a cross-subsidisation between its trading arm and other sectors of the industry. The decision of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission in regard to the consumer will mean—this is accepted not only by the commission but by the Minister, Tim Eggar, as well as by the trade unions and consumer organisations—that in the short term there will be a price increase for gas. The Investors Chronicle went further and projected last year that if this happened not only would we see a domestic price increase but we would probably also see different tariffs in different parts of the country. Against that matrix it suggests that gas in Wales could be something like 9 per cent. more expensive than gas in East Anglia, and that is before the new VAT proposals are applied.
My noble friend Lord Stoddart referred to the social responsibilities of British Gas. That is an area of major concern. As a monopoly supplier it is required to ensure that vulnerable groups in our society are not disconnected and that they have a supply of gas. But where is the consumer protection in the new proposals and the social responsibility? It is a matter of extreme concern. It does not satisfy me to be told by competitors who are poised to come into the industry that they will ensure that their social obligations are met. I am not interested in words but requirements to have that social responsibility.
The proposed changes have already been mentioned in this short debate as regards the cutback in investment. British Gas had a programme of rapid meter exchange. However, in the South-East that was stopped without
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any consultation at all. One of the detrimental social spin-offs is that when replacing those meters British Gas was finding that, on average, about 250 households a week had faults within their gas supply and were potentially unsafe. Having the meters changed was a free safety check. I doubt very much whether vulnerable members of the community will be able to afford a safety check on their gas provision in future.
All the points that I have made tell me that the consumer needs a strong consumer body. So what happened? The Gas Consumers Council had about £200,000 cut from its budget; hence the cutback in staff in the regions. Where do consumers go if they have complaints? Where do consumers look, in the fragmented situation which we shall have in future, for the protection of their position? Those are all areas of genuine concern which I address to the Minister. I hope that he can give us some assurances and answers to those very real problems, not only in the employment field but the consumer field as well.
8.12 p.m.
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, I too should like to thank my noble friend Lord Dean of Berwick for introducing this Question which enables us to have a short discussion of the recently announced reorganisation plan of British Gas. I agree very strongly with the thrust of the speeches of my noble friends Lord Dean and Lord Stoddart and of my noble friend Lady Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde.
However, I wish to offer a few brief comments and ask a few questions about the adverse effects of this major piece of reorganisation on Wales. As part of the reorganisation of British Gas I understand that Gas Wales will be dismantled and will cease to exist. Do the Government have any view on this matter or is the Minister without instructions? Perhaps I may say a few words about the significance of this institution, Wales Gas. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Hooson, will agree with me that we in Wales are aware of the importance of getting the Welsh decision-making machinery right and hence the importance which we attach to concentrating decision-making which affects Wales in Welsh institutions on Welsh soil whenever possible.
During the past 50 years or so, new Welsh financial and administrative institutions have been set up in both the public and private sectors. Indeed, Wales Gas, which was set up in 1947, was one of the first such institutions to be established by the Attlee government. I believe that it is fair to say that the reputation of Wales Gas as a defender of Welsh interests reached well beyond Wales and indeed reached the highest circles of government.
Moreover, experience has shown that, apart from one exception, decision-making machinery in and for Wales is clear proof of a commitment by the department or body corporate to Wales. Experience shows that, once such machinery is in place, then, apart from the one exception I have mentioned, it is there to stay. The dismantling of Wales Gas by British Gas is therefore a departure from or a breach of the principle which we have been establishing slowly over the past 50 years.

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The setting up of a British Gas sales office in Cardiff to sell gas to customers in Wales and the West of England from Reading to Cornwall does not compensate in any way for the loss of Wales Gas providing a comprehensive range of services to Welsh customers and also strengthening, as it did, the concept of Welsh identity. We do not accept for one minute that technological change for the benefit of the industry as a whole requires the dismantling of this institution.
I am entitled to ask, as my noble friends have asked, how much more this measure will cost Wales when it comes to be worked out in detail? It will be quite a lot. According to those who have a firm understanding of the industry, and as my noble friends have illustrated, it will cost the whole country a lot in terms of employment. Sadly, we have been alerted by British Gas, but without any consultation with the employees, that in Wales there will be a loss of between 1,000 and 1,200 jobs, many of them highly skilled, by 1998. That is our part of the burden of the 25,000 to 30,000 unemployed people referred to by my noble friends. We have always appreciated and said that privatisation was never designed to provide work for redundant miners and steelworkers or for any other group.
But can the Minister tell us what steps, if any, will the Government take to soften this blow to Wales or is he without instructions? Are we to be told that the jobs lost are an irremediable fact? Of course, we shall not accept that. If we are told that this is not a matter for the Government, I would mention to the Minister that Welsh Office Ministers repeatedly proclaim up and down Wales the success in job creation of the "rainbow alliance" as they call it, between the Welsh Office, its quangos, the WDA and the private sector.
I agree with my noble friends that another price may have to be paid for this initiative of British Gas. I understand—I believe that I am quoting from the same sources as my noble friend Lady Dean—that it is estimated that, as a result of the reorganisation and against the background of deregulation, the price of gas for the Welsh domestic consumer will rise by about 9 per cent. That means an increase of about £25 for the average gas consumer. I am baffled by that figure, as we have been led by the Government and their supporters to believe that competition should lead to increased efficiency and the reduction of charges to the customer, whereas the very reverse will happen.
It is my understanding that the 9 per cent. increase to which I have referred—or at least a very substantial part of it—will reflect the higher charges which British Gas will almost certainly propose to charge for transportation of the gas upstream from the North Sea wells to the shore to compensate for its loss of current share of the industrial and commercial market. Can the Minister tell us whether there is anything to that? Can he tell us further, if the charge for upstream transportation is £x in 1994, how can British Gas in 1995 or 1998 charge the average Welsh domestic customer £x plus a sum equivalent to 9 per cent? In other words, on what basis can British Gas revalue the transportation charge? I should be grateful if the Minister could throw some light on the formula.
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Taking up a point that was made by my noble friend Lady Dean, will the Minister please tell the House whether it is anticipated that the increase will be applied uniformly throughout England and Wales or is it to be discriminatory against areas at a distance from the North Sea coast? If it is to be discriminatory, I advise the Minister that the principle is totally unacceptable in the context of the supply of gas, as it would be in the context of the supply of Scottish oil.
My last question is related to the point that I have just made. Will the reorganisation in any way serve the needs of the remoter areas or are they to be inevitably priced out of the market? Will they find it more difficult to obtain a supply of gas? I must advise the Minister that there is considerable unease about whether British Gas or an independent supplier (whenever such suppliers enter the private consumer market) will be unwilling to connect the smaller and more remote areas to the supply of gas. Is that unease well founded? In the circumstances, I very much hope that the director general of Ofgas will initiate an inquiry into the question of the supply of gas in Wales, as she has been requested to do by my colleague in another place, Ron Davies, the Shadow Welsh Secretary of State.
To conclude, I agree very strongly with the powerful case that has been deployed by my noble friends. Although we are but spectators on a distant shore, unable to influence events, we have the right to register our strong objection to this market-driven policy.
8.23 p.m.
Lord Hooson: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, has just mentioned the particular problems of Wales, I should like to say how very much I agree with him. I shall not follow his line of argument, however, save to say that I think that it is an enormous shame that British Gas did not follow the recommendations of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission and organise its new structure on a regional basis. Wales Gas could have been very much a part of that, and I must emphasise its importance as a national institution in Wales.
In a debate on a subject such as this, one would normally have the benefit on these Benches of the wisdom and experience of my noble friend Lord Ezra who has a lifetime of experience in the fuel industry and with nationalised industries that have been privatised. My noble friend is unable to be here this evening and I have no qualification for speaking in this debate, save as a consumer. However, it seems to me that, although the die is now cast, the Government's obsession with privatisation has been matched in my lifetime only by the Opposition's obsession with nationalisation at a very much earlier period. I should have thought that the seeds of self-destruction are equally as present in the current obsession as they were in the previous one.
The first question that I should like to ask with regard to the programme relates to its timescale. Would it not have been very much better if the Government had accepted the timescale that was set out and recommended in the report of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission? The timescale is very important because one of the insidious problems of British

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industry during the past decade, and of the Government, has been short-termism. Everybody is scared of the short-term implications of what the Government are doing.
I should like to refer particularly to two matters that concern people: the standard of the services and the security of supply. In my experience, the services rendered by British Gas have improved immeasurably over the years. Only last week I had to call the gas man to my flat in London because of a potential gas leak. He was there within an hour and I had been given instructions on the telephone about exactly what to do before he arrived. During the past week or so, we have heard of the sad death of Donald Swann. One always remembers his marvellous song, The Gas Man Cometh. From my experience, however, I must advise your Lordships that the gas service that I have received both in relation to my flat in London and at my home in Mid Wales has been tremendously good in recent years. We should never forget that there has been that improvement.
When something is being privatised and people are looking for a quick profit and when competitor firms are anxious to prove that they will be more cost-effective than, say, the old-established gas board, there is always the tendency to achieve the desired end by reducing the level of services. That would be totally unacceptable. Therefore, the question is: how will the Government ensure that the standard of service is not reduced?—because if it is reduced, that reduction is irremediable.
Returning to the position in Wales at the moment —that is the area that I know best—I know that the people employed by the gas board there are very skilled indeed. Many of them are not willing to move to other areas—and I do not blame them. However, we must accept that there is a danger of destroying such pools of skill. We have seen that happen in British industry time and time again. We have allowed our inherent pools of skill to be dissipated and we have suffered from our competitors as a result.
My second point relates to the security of supply over the longer term. Whenever competition is introduced, there is always a tendency for people who have just entered the industry to go cherry picking. The conveniently placed customers are the obvious target. I refer to those who can be supplied cheaply and to large consumers, whether domestic or industrial. Such customers are picked off. But how does that affect the supply of gas in distant rural areas, to which the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, referred? And what will the pricing policy be?
The noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, has raised a very important issue in his Unstarred Question. He dwelt largely on the question of the future of the industry's employees. I sympathise and entirely agree with the points that he made. He also raised the question of consumers' long-term interests. Those long-term interests seem to be threatened, and we should be aware of that. Everyone wants competitive pricing, but not at the cost of unreliability resulting from poor services and eventually threatening the security of supply itself.
Those are the two great concerns which affect us, and which will continue to affect us for years to come. Better
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services have been promised, and they have not come about. As some noble Lords will be aware, I am involved in business as well as in other occupations. I have seen marvellous plans drawn up by experts which are supposed to improve supply and reduce prices. They often do not work out in practice, although a marvellous theoretical case can be made out. We are in great danger of moving too fast towards complete competition in this industry. The timescale needs to be looked at again.
I shall mention a note given to me by my noble friend Lord Ezra. In his view, a fair and stable regulatory system is needed to ensure the orderly development of competition. Do the Government intend to propose such a scheme? If so, when, and how will they ensure that it will be effective?
8.31 p.m.
Lord Peston: My Lords, I make a brief intervention into this debate. It is brief because my noble friends and the noble Lord, Lord Hooson, have covered all the main points, and after the earlier excitements I do not believe that your Lordships will wish to be delayed too long. On the other hand, reflecting on the earlier part of the day, and wearing my economist's hat, I wonder whether, in terms of the welfare and interests of ordinary households, the efficient and equitable supply of gas is probably more important to them than the question of Sunday trading. Clearly that is not a view shared by most noble Lords who show their interest in this topic by not being present, although clearly one or two noble Lords are here.
An arguable case can be made out for how important: fuel is in terms of household welfare. On the general questions before us, I start from the MMC report. I hasten to say that it is about the most difficult MMC report that I have ever tried to read. I have had great difficulty in trying to work out the logic of what it says. It did say, and this is a body which one would assume would be in favour of competition, that it felt that the introduction of competition into the domestic market was complicated and that there were special difficulties about the safety and security of gas supplies. That is why the MMC thought that the start date for the Government's change of policy with respect to competition should be at the beginning of the next century. I wonder whether the noble Viscount will tell us about the likely publication of the Government's document on competition and the obligations of companies entering the market, and spell out in more detail why the Government feel that they can act much more quickly on those matters, given the MMC's view of the matter.
In that connection, I would underline the point trade by my noble friends. I am not against competition. I regard competition as an important part of the way in which the economy is run, but to use the expression "cherry-picking" that has been mentioned, I believe that if we are to have competition it should be—to use our favourite cliché—on a level playing field. In other words, the new competitive entrants should not be allowed to pick and choose the most remunerative and easiest customers, leaving British Gas, as it were, to pick up the pieces of the remainder, and to have the

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burden of ensuring the security of supply and of looking after the interests of the poorer households in our community. I should like to hear what the noble Viscount has to say on that point.
Perhaps I may also ask the noble Viscount about the extraordinary story that we heard about in The Times on Saturday, 26th March. It was about a number of rather obscure companies that have managed to find a loophole in the gas release programme which was meant to encourage new competitors into the market for industrial gas. If the story is true, and I normally assume that such things in a newspaper of that quality are true, then, to say the least, some rather dubious activities have taken place with respect to entry into that market. That is not the domestic market, it is the industrial market. I am not just concerned about the article in The Times, but also about the response of the current Director General of Ofgas which, to say the least, is a bit lily-livered when it comes to looking at this matter. I hold the new director general in the highest of esteem, but a director general has to be tough, especially when it comes to the misuse of ways of entering into the market. I should not like to see similar misuse when we come to entry into the domestic market.
Another point which I underline, and to which I hope the noble Viscount will respond, is the point made by my noble friend Lady Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde. She referred to the Gas Consumers Council. I have been bombarded by a certain amount of material for this evening's debate, but I have not heard a whisper from the Gas Consumers Council, which I should have thought would have taken an interest in this topic and take a vigorous view about what would benefit consumers. Again, I reiterate the point that that is consumers as a whole and not merely better off consumers.
On the straight economics of the issue, if some of the new entrants can pick and choose their customers, possibly choosing the best and giving them a certain amount of reduction in price, British Gas being left with the remainder will almost certainly have to put up its prices even more. Thus, the suggestion that all consumers would gain cannot easily be argued.
Perhaps I may say a word about redundancies which follow from the Government's economic policy. We are not debating economic policy tonight, but in so far as competition leads to redundancies that can in a way be accepted in the world of full employment in which we lived until we got this Government. Then, when people lost their jobs—apart from an interim period—they would have new jobs to go to. The point about redundancies now, especially in an industry like this, is that some of the workers who lose their jobs have lost them forever. Circumstances are different.
In conclusion, I am bound to repeat what my noble friend Lord Stoddart said. I would not have privatised gas. If I had privatised it, I would not have done it this way. If the Government now believe that, having done it this way it is wrong, I am not certain that their way of putting it right will work. The Government have got
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themselves into somewhat of a mess. I look forward to hearing the noble Viscount tell us how they will get themselves out of this mess.
There is one last point, and I must apologise for leaving it out. I have said nothing about Wales because it is not a subject upon which I usually speak from this Front Bench and I knew nothing about what was happening there. I have to endorse the remarks of my noble friend Lord Prys-Davies. I accept that what he says must be right. To say the least, I am horrified that such developments can be occurring. For the most part, none of us has been given any notice of what is happening. We are greatly indebted to my noble friend for raising that topic.
8.38 p.m.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I must thank the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Beswick, for introducing this important Question, and all noble Lords who have contributed. The gas industry has undergone a great deal of change under this Government. In 1986 British Gas was privatised enabling it to compete effectively abroad, where it has had great success, and to supply a better service to its customers at home. We have also encouraged competition in the gas supply market which has benefited many users.
However, most customers are at present denied the benefits of competition. Allowing them access to those benefits is the essence of the proposals announced last December by my right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade. The main proposal is to open up British Gas' tariff monopoly to competition from April 1996. From that date all non-domestic customers would be free to switch to a competitor. The domestic market will also be open to competitors but to a limited extent. However, in the first year there will be a 5 per cent. limit on how much of the domestic market competitors can capture. They will be allowed to take a further 5 per cent. the next year with the volume limit being removed after that, subject to the regulator being satisfied that the network operator has the necessary systems in place to handle unlimited switching.
The noble Lords, Lord Hooson and Lord Peston, asked about forward planning. As has been said, the DTI and Ofgas are currently finalising a joint consultation paper which will cover in more detail the proposals for opening up the domestic market to competition and other issues relevant to the important future of the gas market. The report will shortly be published.
In opening up the market we are fulfilling a manifesto commitment which stated that we would:
"progressively reduce British Gas' monopoly of the retail gas market to give small users the same rights as big firms".
We firmly believe that competition is the best way of ensuring that domestic consumers get the best possible deal. In a monopoly market, if you are not happy with the service you get you have little recourse. In a competitive market, you simply change your supplier. In this way gas consumers can get the best balance of service and prices that meets their own individual circumstances.
However, I should like to take this opportunity to join the noble Lord, Lord Hooson, in paying tribute to the

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technical expertise and standards of service that British Gas has achieved since privatisation in 1986. The challenge is to maintain these high standards for the gas consumer while at the same time providing him with real choice.
There are three aspects of these standards where consumers are looking for reassurances. They were stressed tonight by noble Lords. These are safety, social obligations and, of course, prices. First and foremost, people expect their gas supply to be safe and reliable. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, that as the new Director General of Gas Supply has already indicated, the safety of gas consumers is of paramount importance and will continue to be so in a competitive market. Responsibility for safety is a matter for the Health and Safety Commission which will, as always, be looking at the arrangements with an independent eye to ensure that the present high standards are maintained.
The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, and others raised the question of the social obligations of suppliers. It is a key issue. The President of the Board of Trade announced before Christmas that new suppliers would have to:
"adhere to a code, for example, governing disconnections and protecting the elderly and disabled".
Adherence to this code will be one of the conditions of a licence without which companies will not be allowed to supply gas to the domestic market.
All noble Lords raised the issue of prices. The MMC recognised that the introduction of competition may lead to winners and losers. However, some competitors to British Gas have claimed that they would be able to offer cheaper prices to all domestic consumers. Certainly, in the commercial and industrial sectors many customers have seen savings in the region of 10 per cent. as a result of competition being introduced. We firmly believe that competition will lead to the best balance of price and service which best meets consumers' needs.
The noble Lord, Lord Hooson, spoke of the threat of cherry picking services. I reassure him that my right honourable friend announced before Christmas:
"it will be a condition of their licences that suppliers to the domestic market would have to supply gas to any domestic consumer in the licence area who requests it, on the basis of a published tariff … Applicants for licences will need to demonstrate that they meet certain minimum conditions, in particular adequate financial resources and access to sufficient gas to supply customers or a continuing basis".
I now turn to the question of employment in the gas industry. We appreciate the anxiety that has been expressed about the loss of jobs in the industry. British Gas is in the process of restructuring from its present regional structure into five business units, each dealing with a different aspect of its business. For example, one unit will deal with domestic gas supply, another with appliance retailing and so on. It is doing that to cut costs and increase its efficiency. Much of the pressure to cut costs is coming from the requirement—to which British Gas voluntarily agreed—to limit the growth in tariff income to RPI minus four over the period to 1997. Some of the job losses reflect new technology—new information technology systems and the prospect of remote metering. In other words, the job losses would have happened anyway, even if the monopoly continued—
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, is the Minister going to respond to my specific request about the 1,000 redundancies that were made out of the blue after a promise had been given of employment into next year? The work of those people was suddenly terminated by British Gas without consultation and 12 months early. If the Minister is not going to respond to that in a sympathetic manner, is he saying that the Government are prepared to see such activity and practices become the order of the day? The workers will always receive: the rough end of the stick.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I intend fully to cover the important point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Dean. I was about to come to that matter. As I said, the job losses would have occurred even if the monopoly had continued. Indeed, 20,000 of the job losses were announced before the President's decision on the MMC reports.
The noble Lord, Lord Dean, concentrated on the issue of job cuts by meter manufacturers. That is an important issue and perhaps I may look at the background. In the early 1980s it emerged that natural gas was having an adverse effect on meters fitted with leather diaphragms, which dated back to before 1980. The result was that some of the meters were over-registering. Ofgas considered enforcement—
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, perhaps I may save the Minister some time. I am perfectly aware of the technicalities, because I have gone through them. 'The Minister is correct in saying that the redundancies would have occurred next year in any event. I am not disputing that point. The argument in principle is that British Gas, without consultation, brought the redundancies forward by 12 months. That was to the utter dismay of the 1,000 people involved. There is no argument about the quality of the meters; the issue is that 1,000 people have been badly let down by British Gas.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, it is important accurately to set the scene to these redundancies. The technical background is important in explaining why the situation came about. I shall briefly explain the situation and the Government's reaction to it.
Some of the meters were over-registering and in 1987 Ofgas considered enforcement action on the grounds that British Gas was failing in its duty to ensure that all its meters were in proper working order. Ofgas was able to withhold such action since British Gas agreed to double the rate of meter replacement in its existing 20-year replacement programme. That was to the manufacturing limit of the two principal meter suppliers, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Dean. They were Schlumberger UK and United Gas Industries. Last year British Gas decided to stop using synthetic diaphragm meters and transfer to installing new electronic ultrasonic metres. In its opinion, the latter are better meters. As the noble Lord, Lord Dean, stressed, the result of the decision was that jobs were lost both at Schlumberger UK and at United Gas Industries.

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While we appreciate and understand the noble Lord's sincere concern about the job losses, the question of which meters British Gas uses is entirely a commercial matter for it as a commercial company. The role of Ofgas is solely to ensure that the replacement programme is completed as quickly as possible because gas consumers must be supplied with accurate meters. It is very important to ensure that the consumer is protected.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, before the noble Viscount leaves that point, I wish to be clear about it. I do not question the change to another meter. I made the point that it had not yet been proven. But I do not for one moment want the Government to interfere with the policy of the industry. I do not believe that the Minister has yet dealt adequately with the point I raised. By his silence is he saying that he fully approves the action of British Gas in bringing forward redundancies by 12 months, without any discussion, when people have been given a guarantee that their jobs will be there until next year, with the result that 1,000 people have been put out of work one year earlier? He must have listened to the point that I made. When I visited Ofgas with Mr. Lloyd, the Member of Parliament for that area of Manchester, I stated to the new director-general and her staff that it looked as though they were totally surprised that British Gas had not consulted Schlumberger and Smith's before the announcement of the more rapid redundancies than those for which they had given a guarantee. My response was to ask whether I was being told that British Gas had pulled a fast one on them. The answer that I got was "Yes". If that is the order of the day which the Government will support in a debate like this, I believe that they are supporting very poor standards indeed. Will the Government use their best endeavours to persuade British Gas that it ought not to do this and that it should stick to its original promise?
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, the point that I sought to make was that, as the noble Lord himself agreed, it was not for the Government to intervene in what was a commercial matter for British Gas.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I did not say that. I believe that we have a Government that can intervene if they wish to.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I do not believe that I can add to the position as I have stated it very clearly. We do not feel that it would be appropriate for the Government to intervene in what is a commercial matter; that is, British Gas's choice of which meters it considers to be appropriate for use in their system.
The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, raised the question of the reorganisation of the British Gas Wales
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system. I have to say again that it would not be appropriate for the Government to intervene in that decision. It is part of the restructuring programme that is being undertaken by British Gas. However, British Gas has said that the new structure will retain the identity of British Gas Wales. There will be a major gas supply centre at Helmont House in Cardiff serving not only Wales but also the South West of England. Two gas transportation centres located in Wales will be responsible for the pipeline and storage network throughout Wales. Their precise locations are yet to be decided. The Welsh management scheme will continue to represent the very best interests of Wales in any companywide decision. The reduction in manpower in the Welsh operation will be in rough proportion to losses throughout England and Scotland as well.
Many jobs will be lost through natural wastage and voluntary redundancies in the overall British Gas redundancy situation, not in Wales specifically. British Gas hopes that there will be few compulsory redundancies. We must also realise that as British Gas loses customers other suppliers gain them. With the opening up of the domestic market no doubt competitors will need to take on more employees to deal with the large increase in their customers.
The important point is that we should not be considering the gas industry in isolation. Lower industrial gas prices improve the competitiveness of other industries and employment prospects in other sectors. Since privatisation, industrial gas prices have fallen in real terms by 30 per cent. It is by improving the competitiveness of all industry and commerce in this way that we shall create jobs which are genuinely secure, not by perpetuating monopolies and encouraging inefficiencies. What we are looking for is the same safety and reliability in our gas supply that we have enjoyed so far, but with the general lowering of price and better tailoring of service to individual needs that consumer choice and competition provide. I outlined our achievements to date in the gas industry at the beginning of my remarks this evening. We now need to carry these achievements forward, and I believe that the decisions which the Government made in response to the MMC reports will do this.
British Gas has made it clear that its job cuts will not impact on the standards of service it provides and will not lead to a reduction in the vitally important issue of safety. I have made it clear that the Government will ensure that the rights of domestic consumers are fully protected. The publication of the consultative paper will be the first step in the consultation process, the purpose of which is to ensure that the present very high standards in the gas industry are maintained.
House adjourned at four minutes before nine o'clock.