Should Sunday opening restrictions be loosened in the UK? Since 1994, any shop larger than 3,000 square feet can only stay open for six consecutive hours between 10am and 6pm on a Sunday - but should the rules be changed? We took to the streets in a city near you to find out what people think.
Category
đź—ž
NewsTranscript
00:00 Do you think Sunday trading rules should be relaxed to allow shoppers more...
00:07 No!
00:08 Do not shop on Sundays!
00:10 Why not?
00:11 Because Sunday is the Lord's Day and that's the day he prescribed for us to take a break.
00:17 So I'm Bulgarian, I come from Bulgaria and in East Europe we don't have our shops closing
00:23 at all so this is like always a cultural difference for me.
00:26 I'm used to having the shops open like always until 10 on a Sunday so for me yes and no
00:33 it would be better for the person who's shopping for example.
00:37 Yeah, if anyone's trying to get out on a Sunday but they've only got a short amount of time
00:44 out then that's going to cause a lot of problems.
00:48 People having more time off is in general a better thing to have but then there's also
00:52 the fact that everyone works on a different schedule, sometimes you may have just come
00:56 off of an incredibly long shift and you just want to get a quick bite to eat on a Sunday
00:59 so it might get a bit annoying but I think it's a necessary, well not necessarily an
01:04 evil but something that needs to be had around so that people actually get a break for once.
01:09 Most shops in England and Wales can only open for six hours on a Sunday but are Britons
01:14 in favour of extended opening hours across the weekend.
01:18 YouGov has been asking shoppers just that since 2019.
01:22 Pretty consistently more than half of people think shops should be allowed to open for
01:26 as long as they want on Sundays, with 52% agreeing in the latest results from this month.
01:32 For those people who have to work weekends I suppose it's nice for them to have a break
01:37 but then at the same time places like fast food, restaurants, you don't have that option
01:42 to only work till four o'clock or five o'clock, whatever that may be, or having a later start.
01:50 So I suppose maybe it should be relaxed so it's fairer for everyone.
01:52 I'm living in Ukraine so we don't have any basically very strict rules about Sundays
01:58 so I don't know from 8, 9am in the morning till the very late in the evening everything
02:03 is open.
02:04 But what's funny is I studied in Poland so on Sunday if you want to go buy milk or eggs
02:10 or whatever you need everything is closed so I think here in the UK basically it's very
02:14 good.
02:15 I think it's the golden middle of this, everything is in a balance.
02:21 No I don't think so.
02:22 I think God meant us to have a day of rest and that includes shop workers so I think
02:27 we need a day of rest.
02:28 I live way out in the sticks and they close at like three o'clock anyway so it's fine.
02:34 I think I'd let people have a rest.
02:36 I mean if shops want to stay open longer or shorter I think that's just down to them personally.
02:41 I think it's decent because at least you get Fridays and Saturdays full day, that's quite
02:46 nice you know.
02:47 Me personally I spend my Sundays kind of just relaxing preparing for the next work week
02:51 so that's alright with me.
02:52 Every other country is open, you know, you go abroad and they're open long hours on a
02:57 Sunday and why shouldn't we?
03:00 It would bring more employment in as well so you know, go for it.