The six-hour trading limit on Christmas Eve could see scraps breaking out in supermarket aisles across the UK, experts have warned.
David Ramsden, chairman of Deregulate, which campaigns to lift the restrictions on Sunday trading, predicts chaos will erupt on Christmas Eve - the busiest shopping day of the year - as shoppers battle to fill their baskets.
He said: “In a regular Christmas Eve some shops open through the night, but they won’t have the option this time. My fear is that because there’s just a six-hour slot they will be unable to get everyone in and out.
“I wonder how the stores will cope when, at 4.30pm, the queues are mounting up and everyone needs to get through the checkouts. They are not legally allowed to use their tills when the hour has struck, unless they want to face a £50,000 fine per store and criminal prosecution.”
But a spokesman from the British Retail Consortium said its research showed most shoppers will not leave a big shop until the last minute.
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