The Christian Institute has criticised Government plans to relax Sunday trading restrictions as it tries to revive the economy following months of lockdown.

There are reports that the Government plans to suspend current regulations for a year as part of a wider strategy to stimulate the economy. 

Sunday trading laws in England and Wales allow supermarkets and department stores to open for six hours between 10am and 6pm, while smaller shops can open all day. 

The Christian Institute's Ciarán Kelly questioned the move, saying that "for people from all walks of life, Sunday is special and we need to keep it that way.

"Relaxing Sunday trading laws will put more pressure on people to work on Sundays, harming family life and further interfering with Sunday as a day of rest."

Labour has come out in opposition to the proposal, with the Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy telling the BBC's Andrew Marr she was "not at all convinced that this will actually help to get the economy back on track".

She suggested relaxing Sunday trading would be detrimental to shop workers' families.

"We've just been applauding our frontline workers, supermarket workers are amongst those," she said.

"They are deeply worried about what this all means for them in terms of time with their families.

"This could hit our high streets very hard as well at a time they are really struggling with coronavirus - I just think this is the wrong thing to do."