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Special rights relating to Sunday working are not found in the core Working time legislation (the Working Time Regulations 1998, SI 1998/1833) and, unlike that legislation, do not derive from European Law. These rights are purely domestic.

Although the historic reason that special Sunday working rights exist in UK law was to support or allow observance of the Christian concept of Sunday as a day of rest, these rights are in fact in no way dependent upon the religion of any employee covered by them; rather, where the rights apply, they do so irrespective of to what religion an employee may adhere—indeed whether or not that employee professes religious belief of any sort whatsoever.

The principal (and major) restriction on these express Sunday working rights, however, is that (unlike the core working time legislation) they do not cover Workers universally; rather they are only of any application to:

1. •

   those employees who work in shops, and

2. •

   those employees doing work relating to betting at tracks or in betting shops

As regards more general protection for workers whose religious