At Second Reading of the Enterprise Bill in the House of Commons the Government announced their intention to devolve Sunday Trading laws to local authorities and introduced amendments during the Commons Committee Stage.

Alan Campbell MP said “I strongly support the existing arrangements which work well and strike a sensible balance between the needs of those who want to shop and those who work in retail.  I therefore opposed the Government’s proposed changes in parliament today, voting in favour of an amendment to remove these provisions from the Bill. The Government was defeated by 317 votes to 286.

As the person responsible on our side for making sure we had the numbers and working with other parties I should admit I was slightly surprised by the scale of victory. I hope this now puts the issue to bed however should it return to Parliament, please be   assured that I will continue to echo the voices of small businesses, shopworkers and their families in support of the current arrangements.”