DAVID CAMERON’S government was defeated in the Commons for the first time yesterday over plans to wreck Britain’s “social fabric” and workers’ weekends by turning Sundays into another shopping bonanza.

A rebellion of more than 20 Tories helped scupper a plan to let councils set Sunday opening hours — which was not in the party’s manifesto. An amendment to remove the plan from the Enterprise Bill was won by a thumping 317 to 286 votes.

“I warned the government that unless they pulled their plans then they would face a public and humiliating defeat on the floor of the House of Commons,” said Labour shadow business secretary Angla Eagle.

“That is exactly what we have delivered.”

Communities Minister Brandon Lewis bungled a last minute bid to avoid the mutiny, attempting to make an amendment that would see the plans piloted in 12 areas and debated again by MPs in a year’s time. But former Tory defence minister Gerald Howarth said the concessions made “the back of a fag packet look sophisticated.”

Speaker John Bercow torpedoed the government escape plan by refusing to put Mr Lewis’s amendment to a vote. MPs from all parties quoted a survey conducted by shopworkers’ union Usdaw that showed 91 per cent of staff in large shops were opposed to the extension of Sunday trading hours.

Labour MP David Lammy asked: “Why is it that in this country this government thinks that we should put the free market first above everything else?”

SNP MP Hannah Bardell warned that low-paid staff could lose overtime payments and said she was “not prepared to gamble with the pay packets of some of Scotland and the UK’s lowest-paid workers.”

Small shops are already allowed to open all hours on Sundays, but high street giants and out-of-town stores are limited to opening between 10am and 6pm on a Sunday.

Opponents warn the new rules would extend that for up to six hours. The government, which has a slender majority of 13, has not lost a vote in the Commons since last May’s election.