Time to sweep aside Sunday compromise

Ten years ago this week, the Sunday Trading Act came into force. Unfortunately, it was a botch job, an unhappy compromise between free market supporters and religious conservatives, and the sooner it is reformed the better.

Since the Act came in, stores have been allowed to trade for a maximum of six hours between 10am and 6pm, repealing a ban that only dated back to 1936. However, these trading hours are confusing and illogical. Either you can shop on a Sunday or you can't.

The Keep Sunday Special campaign argued against Sunday trading, a point of view based principally on a strictly religious view of the Sabbath. As a concession, hours were restricted and Easter Sunday was specifically excluded from the reform. It still remains the only day of the year when retailers are not allowed to trade, although, on purely religious grounds, surely a more compelling case could be made for both Good Friday and Christmas Day?

The argument had been rolling on for most of the 1980s, and an earlier, unsuccessful, attempt to reform in February 1983 goes down as a footnote in history as Margaret Thatcher's only Parliamentary defeat.

The law is confusing, and there is no obvious reason why the shops should not be allowed to trade without restriction on a Sunday.

Is the Christian fabric of the nation really so weak as to be threatened by shops being open for a few extra hours on Sundays? In fact, with the 2001 census revealing that 72 per cent of the population regard themselves as Christian, it is highly unlikely that unrestricted Sunday trading would constitute any kind of serious threat.

Although there is no current effort by retailers to reform Sunday trading, Usdaw has successfully sponsored a bill to ban Christmas Day trading. Here, surely, is a reform everyone can support: the religious lobby, the union and, perhaps a trifle cynically, the retailers.

Christmas is far and away the most important trading period for the high street. However, it only works if people have the day off on Christmas Day, with no distractions, to open their presents and eat and drink themselves into a stupor. Shopping is the last thing retailers want to see them doing, and besides, they are too busy preparing for the Boxing Day sales.