Campaign for Sunday shopping intensifies

THE LAW banning Sunday trading is an ass, broken by 28 million shoppers every week, and should be changed, according to organisers of a campaign launched yesterday.

The Sunday Shopping Campaign, formed by the Shopping Hours Reform Council and the Consumers' Association, is encouraging people to lobby the Government to legalise Sunday shopping.

During a nationwide tour over the next few months organisers will be collecting signatures for a petition and distributing 'I Support Sunday Shopping' postcards to send to Kenneth Clarke, the Home Secretary.

A Mori poll showed that 67 per cent of those questioned support changes in the law to allow more shops to open on Sunday.

The campaign was launched by Baroness Jay, chairwoman of the Shopping Hours Reform Council, and Philip Whitehead, chairman of the Consumers' Association.

Mr Whitehead, a former MP, said: 'Although millions of people are voting with their feet every Sunday, in defiance of the law, and although the law has become more and more in disrepute, the consumers' wishes have been ignored by the legislators.

'The Government should be taking more notice of them than the vocal minority who have obstructed change.' He claimed that '28 million people regularly shop on Sunday'.

Baroness Jay said that 'the law has been demonstrated to be an ass. What the shops do is a matter for them.'