To think it's time to abolish Sunday trading rules in England

[CurdinHenry]

And just have a more normal week

"The point is, why is 2026 do we need the government to tell us when we can and can’t go shopping?"

They're not telling us when we can go shopping, they're telling the big stores when they can open, to prevent them driving everyone else out of business and ending up as a cartel. I posted about this at 03:08 this morning.

That might be your culture / tradition but it isn’t everyone’s. It’s not all about you, either.

Also, regulation is good. Do people really want business dictating their lives to them without any protection in law

Just because you posted it, it doesn’t mean we all need to fall into line and agree with it.

You say it’s the government telling big stores when they can open rather than telling us when we can shop, but one begets the other. I also find it bizarre that you think one day of restricted trading a week is going to make that much of a difference to the power of big retailers.

Who is being protected though? Several retail workers have confirmed on this thread that they still work a standard shift on a Sunday anyway; just not all of it on the shop floor.

I don’t want the government dictating what time I can or cannot use a business’s services either.

I think you have misunderstood that I'm fine with that as long as it's a requirement for all parties and not just the one people don't agree with.

Up thread there's talk about protecting us from big businesses and supermarkets dominating the market.

As regards trading then I can understand you may not want restrictions on timings. However, we all need regulations in lots of areas relating to goods and employment and we can't trust all businesses to do this for themselves

I agree. Pass by a supermarket between 5-7pm any weekday and you see how busy the car parks are. Many of these will be customers who have just finished work, which the smaller independent shops aren’t catering for because they seem to be stuck on opening 9-5 Monday - Friday. Seems to be the same across many towns in the UK. Can’t see how limiting the hours the supermarkets and larger shops are open on Sundays really makes much difference to the smaller shops.

The arguments along the lines of Sunday trading laws helping smaller businesses don’t stack up now. Not when you even have a Tesco Express even in villages, let alone pretty much every town, which is something we didn’t have until fairly recently. Plus many small, independent shops are closed on Sundays anyway!

If the smaller shops are offering something worthwhile to customers to visit and more importantly are actually available to customers, they’ll use them.

Absolutely not - if anything I‘d quite like to see everything bar petrol stations and the odd corner shop closed. The poor staff having to work all days and all hours - our nearest Tesco shop is open till 11pm on a Sunday.

Restaurants and Cafés are open till 4/5pm - ample time to get your coffee in. If you miss that window just settle down at home or arrange your time in a way that allows you to have that coffee out earlier.

Your veiled jab at „the majority“ not being Christian sounds goady - many people of all faiths like to have one day off to spend with their family. It happens to be on a Sunday here in England - if you don’t like it then move somewhere else.

They are in the villages - most shops shut at 1pm. Bigger towns and cities have open shops till 4-6pm.

Definitely open all day like the other days! It’s so old fashioned & most other jobs keep going all weekend so why do retail staff need less time off than other professions?

I wish they would be abolished.

I frequently work Sundays and it's full on and in many different venues often a reasonable way from home. I'm tired and hungry and would love to pickup a snack from the supermarket to get me home.

No chance.