Sunday trading

[Gordon]

The idea that wages would be driven down here in Scotland implies that Sunday trading UK-wide would be marginal profit-wise, and if introduced down south might generate losses due to premium Sunday wage rates. This seems odd to me, since based on anecdotal experience (mine) on a typical Sunday the local Tesco in Milngavie is fairly busy at 8.30am (it opens at 8am) and is still reasonably busy at 9.30pm (it closes at 10pm on Sundays).

Gordon, I think that there is another issue all tied up with this - online shopping.  It appears to be growing quite dramatically, year on year, thus putting pressure on 'High-Street'-based shopping.  Remember that the later have to pay Business Rates whilst purely online companies have a far lower BR burden.

(I've just started a new thread on this latter matter)

Perhaps, but on-line shopping applies to Scotland too but here at least the large supermarkets here aren't constrained. However, and I'm not sure when internet shopping started to increase in popularity, the option of 'normal' hours on a Sunday has been the case here for years now and I don't recall the challenge of internet shopping ever being raised as justification.

Seems to me, as I said on previous threads on this, that there is a 'Sunday is special' tradition/mentality in England & Wales that acts as a constraint on shopping and employment choices - last time I visited Tesco on a Sunday evening to do a weekly shop (we sometimes do this) there was an notable absence of frightened horses!

[Harrowby Hall]

They are doing it to protect the earnibgs of their voters who do work on Sundays.

So, they have been making some of the same arguments as groups such as the Keep Sunday Special Campaign have been since Thatcher introduced her original idea back in the 1980s.

??

I don't follow. Please explain.

[Harrowby Hall]

"Government plans to relax Sunday trading laws in England and Wales have been put on hold, after SNP opposition meant it faced defeat in the Commons.
The SNP had said it would vote against the changes amid fears it could drive down Scottish workers' wages."

Excellent.  The SNP has shown good sense

The SNP are merely using an opportunity to sabotage Cameron's EVEL plan.

Nothing more. It has nothing to do with "good sense."

The slightest hint that an "English" legislation will affect so much as a blade of grass north of the border and they will do it again ... and again ...

But the SNP are not doing it to support superstition and belief in magic and fairies.

Fairies have got nothing to do with Sunday opening.

You're allowed to open Harrowby towers gift and Estate farm shop anyway. Why so grumpy?

Indeed, and all the illegal immigrants that I employ at rates below the national minimum wage are made to double their output on Sundays for half their usual pay.

If we could leave the EU, the United Nations and the human race, I could make them work even harder.

And I certainly won't let them have Sundays off so that they can go to those funny buildings decorated with stylised erect penises so that they can join other people talking to themselves.

[Hope]

Perhaps, but on-line shopping applies to Scotland too but here at least the large supermarkets here aren't constrained. However, and I'm not sure when internet shopping started to increase in popularity, the option of 'normal' hours on a Sunday has been the case here for years now and I don't recall the challenge of internet shopping ever being raised as justification.

I have, but only over the last 3 or 4 years and only as one of a number of justifications.

[Hope]

The SNP are merely using an opportunity to sabotage Cameron's EVEL plan.

Yet this particular plan isn't even part of the EVEL category as it impacts on Wales as well.

[Harrowby Hall]

The SNP are merely using an opportunity to sabotage Cameron's EVEL plan.

Yet this particular plan isn't even part of the EVEL category as it impacts on Wales as well.

So?

[Gordon]

Perhaps, but on-line shopping applies to Scotland too but here at least the large supermarkets here aren't constrained. However, and I'm not sure when internet shopping started to increase in popularity, the option of 'normal' hours on a Sunday has been the case here for years now and I don't recall the challenge of internet shopping ever being raised as justification.

I have, but only over the last 3 or 4 years and only as one of a number of justifications.

What are the other justifications for restrictions, since for obvious reasons they don't get much coverage in the Scottish media since they don't apply here?

[Hope]

What are the other justifications for restrictions, since for obvious reasons they don't get much coverage in the Scottish media since they don't apply here?

The most common is work/family balance, whilst I have recently heard reference to the idea that 7-day working actually requires more regular replacement of equipment; in some cases, the relative shortage of custom on a Sunday has been given as a justification - especially within the context of High Streets.

[Gordon]

What are the other justifications for restrictions, since for obvious reasons they don't get much coverage in the Scottish media since they don't apply here?

The most common is work/family balance, whilst I have recently heard reference to the idea that 7-day working actually requires more regular replacement of equipment; in some cases, the relative shortage of custom on a Sunday has been given as a justification - especially within the context of High Streets.

Who defines what work/family balance should be?

I'd have thought that being prescriptive about when reasonable people can shop by deliberately restricting trading is little more than unwarranted interference when a quick trip north of the border would confirm that the absence of Sunday trading restrictions is unremarkable and that there have been no dire consequences leading to demands to re-impose restrictions here.

Seems to me that the opposition to this (apart from the SNP, who I suspect are playing politics) is primarily based on the fear of change and attachment the argument from tradition that Sunday is 'special', and of course in this context 'special' is used as code for 'no change': who else gets to define 'special'?     

[Shaker]

Who defines what work/family balance should be?

I'd have thought that being prescriptive about when reasonable people can shop by deliberately restricting trading is little more than unwarranted interference when a quick trip north of the border would confirm that the absence of Sunday trading restrictions is unremarkable and that there have been no dire consequences leading to demands to re-impose restrictions here.

Seems to me that the opposition to this (apart from the SNP, who I suspect are playing politics) is primarily based on the fear of change and attachment the argument from tradition that Sunday is 'special', and of course in this context 'special' is used as code for 'no change': who else gets to define 'special'?   

Spot on in every respect.

[ProfessorDavey]

What are the other justifications for restrictions, since for obvious reasons they don't get much coverage in the Scottish media since they don't apply here?

The most common is work/family balance, whilst I have recently heard reference to the idea that 7-day working actually requires more regular replacement of equipment; in some cases, the relative shortage of custom on a Sunday has been given as a justification - especially within the context of High Streets.

Who defines what work/family balance should be?

I'd have thought that being prescriptive about when reasonable people can shop by deliberately restricting trading is little more than unwarranted interference when a quick trip north of the border would confirm that the absence of Sunday trading restrictions is unremarkable and that there have been no dire consequences leading to demands to re-impose restrictions here.

Seems to me that the opposition to this (apart from the SNP, who I suspect are playing politics) is primarily based on the fear of change and attachment the argument from tradition that Sunday is 'special', and of course in this context 'special' is used as code for 'no change': who else gets to define 'special'?   

The work/life balance debate is a bit of a red herring to me, or perhaps better considered to be less black and white. Sure extended opening may (and I emphasise may) detrimentally affect a small number of people - i.e. those asked to work additional hours. But there will be others who are working for whom extra hours on a Sunday (rather than being limited to just 6 which is disruptive yet not a full working day) enhances flexibility and improves work/life balance.

And of course there are many more people for whom being better able to fit shopping around their busy lives, rather than their busy lives around the shop opening hours will improve work/life balance.

[wigginhall]

It's odd how the SNP are being vilified for this, and the fact that the Tories can't get their bill through the Commons via their own MPs is being ignored.   Oppositions parties oppose, and governments pass bills, unless they can't. 

Weren't the SNP also angry that the Scotland Bill has not included control over tax credits?

[Hope]

Seems to me that the opposition to this (apart from the SNP, who I suspect are playing politics) is primarily based on the fear of change and attachment the argument from tradition that Sunday is 'special', and of course in this context 'special' is used as code for 'no change': who else gets to define 'special'?   

Yet we have had no big outcry from churches or other religious organisations, Gordon.  The chief 'culprits' are Trades Unions and politicians.

[Gordon]

Seems to me that the opposition to this (apart from the SNP, who I suspect are playing politics) is primarily based on the fear of change and attachment the argument from tradition that Sunday is 'special', and of course in this context 'special' is used as code for 'no change': who else gets to define 'special'?   

Yet we have had no big outcry from churches or other religious organisations, Gordon.  The chief 'culprits' are Trades Unions and politicians.

Which is exactly the point I was making earlier: this is mainly about politics.

[floo]

Is there anyone here who won't buy things on a Sunday, if necessary?

[Outrider]

Perhaps, but on-line shopping applies to Scotland too but here at least the large supermarkets here aren't constrained. However, and I'm not sure when internet shopping started to increase in popularity, the option of 'normal' hours on a Sunday has been the case here for years now and I don't recall the challenge of internet shopping ever being raised as justification.

I have, but only over the last 3 or 4 years and only as one of a number of justifications.

What are the other justifications for restrictions, since for obvious reasons they don't get much coverage in the Scottish media since they don't apply here?

According to the SNP spokesman on the Jeremy Vine show, yesterday, it's about the idea that if Sunday trading were more widespread it would somehow lower the wages paid - presumably because Sunday would be treated as any other working day.

His statement suggested that the SNP were in favour Sunday Trading in principle, but that they wanted a wage guarantee from the government somehow, despite the fact that so far as I can see there is no such safeguard in the Scottish trading laws for Sunday.

It was, blatantly, just an excuse by the SNP for an opportunity to be seen to be opposing the Tory government feeding into the horribly over-used phrase he was spouting about how the SNP were the 'effective opposition' at Westminster. Blatant politicking at the expense of workers and consumers, something the SNP had typically been avoiding up until now.

O.

[wigginhall]

Well, blatant politicking has been going on for a long time, hasn't it?  Cameron's speech after the referendum was totally blatant, ditto the recent Scotland Bill.   

I am trying to understand the USDAW argument, but it's complicated.   The elephant in the room is the Tory rebellion but hush, hush, much easier to blame the Scots. 

[BashfulAnthony]

Is there anyone here who won't buy things on a Sunday, if necessary?

I don't suppose there are;  but there are plenty of shops open to do so.

[Outrider]

Well, blatant politicking has been going on for a long time, hasn't it?  Cameron's speech after the referendum was totally blatant, ditto the recent Scotland Bill.

Absolutely. I'm not surprised it's happening, I'm only slightly disappointed that the SNP have stooped to the level quite so quickly.

I am trying to understand the USDAW argument, but it's complicated.

I don't think it's complicated, I think it's ideological bollocks. The point they actually want to make is 'we have an opportunity to stick it to the Tory scum because they have a partial split in their ranks and a very small majority', much as the SNP are. Their excuse is just fatuous crap to try to hide that. Unions should be standing up for their workers when they need to and working with employers when they need to, and the rest of the time they should be just invisible. Too often it seems like the unions are trying to justify their existence in a culture where, broadly, we have employment rights in place.

The elephant in the room is the Tory rebellion but hush, hush, much easier to blame the Scots

True. Keep Sunday special has no more place in a multicultural society than Bishops with reserved seats in the Lords.

O.

[BashfulAnthony]

Well, blatant politicking has been going on for a long time, hasn't it?  Cameron's speech after the referendum was totally blatant, ditto the recent Scotland Bill.

Absolutely. I'm not surprised it's happening, I'm only slightly disappointed that the SNP have stooped to the level quite so quickly.

I am trying to understand the USDAW argument, but it's complicated.

I don't think it's complicated, I think it's ideological bollocks. The point they actually want to make is 'we have an opportunity to stick it to the Tory scum because they have a partial split in their ranks and a very small majority', much as the SNP are. Their excuse is just fatuous crap to try to hide that. Unions should be standing up for their workers when they need to and working with employers when they need to, and the rest of the time they should be just invisible. Too often it seems like the unions are trying to justify their existence in a culture where, broadly, we have employment rights in place.

The elephant in the room is the Tory rebellion but hush, hush, much easier to blame the Scots

True. Keep Sunday special has no more place in a multicultural society than Bishops with reserved seats in the Lords.

O.

Why just the Bishops?  What about all the other unelected mob?  Just an expression of your bias again.

[Shaker]

Which other unelected mob?

[BashfulAnthony]

Which other unelected mob?

The Lords, generally, of course.

[Shaker]

Which other unelected mob?

The Lords, generally, of course.

That issue could be solved long overdue root-and-branch reform.

[BashfulAnthony]

Which other unelected mob?

The Lords, generally, of course.

That issue could be solved long overdue root-and-branch reform.

Which isn't going to happen whilst Dave is in charge.  The best you get from him is lip-servce.

[Outrider]

Why just the Bishops?  What about all the other unelected mob?  Just an expression of your bias again.

I think you might have mistaken the point I intended. I'm in favour of revoking the idea of inherited or politically appointed seats in the upper chamber as a whole.

Specifically, though, in a multi-cultural society, to reserve seats for representatives of a specific sect of a specific religion is unjustifiable - even if I were to accept that there should be reserved places for representatives of religion, to have them all be Anglican is out of keeping with the broader society.

O.