A number of people have written to me on the matter of Sunday Trading. The proposals are not being progressed at this stage. But given the level of interest I wanted to provide some further information on this issue.
The current Sunday trading rules were established over 20 years ago in the Sunday Trading Act 1994 (the STA 1994). The Act liberalised Sunday trading law for shops, by repealing Part IV of the Shops Act 1950. It introduced a scheme of partial deregulation. The Act makes a distinction between small and large shops. Under the Act, shops are ‘large’ if their relevant floor area exceeds 280 square metres or 3,000 square feet in size.
Small shops are not covered by the restrictions of the STA 1994 and can open at any time on a Sunday. In effect, a small shop could open twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year including Christmas Day, if the owner so wished. Whereas the Sunday trading rules limit the Sunday opening hours of large stores in England and Wales to 6 continuous hours between 10am and 6pm on a Sunday.
The Government has consulted on devolving powers on Sunday trading to city mayors and local authorities. Devolving Sunday trading rules would have given local leaders the power to extend Sunday trading hours within their area or within specific parts of their area, such as shopping centres, town centres, or on particular high streets.
I appreciate how important this issue is to many constituents. The Government believes that the current Sunday trading rules – which were established over 20 years ago – have not kept pace with the current consumer environment with the rise, for example, of online and mobile phone shopping.
However, as I say, the Government will not progress these proposals at this stage. They will consider the results of the consultation and other representations. Should anything change I will keep this page updated.