As chairman of B&Q, he brought Sunday shopping to the UK
Nigel Whittaker, who has died of cancer aged 62, was the architect of the retail revolution that opened the floodgates to Sunday trading. When he became chairman of the DIY chain B&Q in 1986, he started what was to be a complex battle to be allowed to meet public demand for shops in England and Wales to be able to open on Sundays.
The National Consumer Council, under Maurice Healey, was Nigel's first ally, since, according to the council's research, two out of three consumers wanted shops to open. The opposition from churches, unions and small shops was vocal and intense. At the outset, among retailers, only DIY stores and garden centres had much appetite for change. The major food chains and department stores were opposed to it.
Nigel recruited other forward-looking retailers: Terence Conran, Simon Hornby of WH Smith, and Phil Harris (Lord Harris of Peckham), forming Open Shop to put the case to the public. The inconclusive work of the government's Auld committee of inquiry into Sunday trading (1983-84) was beefed up by bringing in John Kay's Institute for Fiscal Studies, and the campaign took on economic, political and popular dimensions. Nonetheless the first campaign was lost, thanks to the Democratic Unionist MP the Rev Ian Paisley (now Lord Bannside), who brought his politicians to Westminster to vote against the shops bill of 1986, and thus managed to derail the legislation, although it had no relevance to Northern Ireland.
Nigel brought to bear international research showing that Sunday opening could be popular and profitable without bringing down the heavens. A new problem developed – the Sunday opening of DIY stores appeared illegal under the 1950 Shops Act, and shops that opened were frequently prosecuted. Nigel developed and saw through a strong European defence that relied on the Treaty of Rome. On a journey from a magistrates' court in south Wales to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, it became arguable that respectable companies that opened on Sundays were not flouting the law. Agreement was reached with the shopworkers' unions, the GMB and finally USDAW, and the compromise of six hours' Sunday opening for big shops passed into law in the Sunday Trading Act of 1994.
Nigel was born in Croydon and went to school in Caterham, Surrey. He spent a year helping to build an orphanage in Naples before going to Clare College, Cambridge, to read law in 1968. In his third year he chaired CUSSO, the university's umbrella organisation for student volunteering. At university, he met his future wife, Joyce Cadman, and they married in 1972. He went to the US on a Mellon fellowship, to Yale law school, where he was a contemporary of Bill and Hillary Clinton. On return he was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1974 and then started work as a lawyer in the world of commerce.
His first job was at Roche Products, then seeking to appeal against a decision from the Monopolies Commission that it should reduce UK valium prices by 70%. With the eyes of the world on London, Hoffmann-La Roche HQ in Basel, Switzerland, used the local legal warfare as cover for a direct deal with UK ministers. After Roche, Nigel went to British Sugar, then part-government-owned and fighting its corner for beet sugar in Brussels. There he first met John Beckett, British Sugar's chief executive, who led with brio, notably during the organisation's battle against takeover by Berisfords. Before that battle was finally lost, British Sugar achieved the distinction of involving the European Commission for the first time in a UK takeover.
Beckett and his team, including Nigel, were soon afterwards recruited by institutional investors to take over the management reins at Woolworths. As a member of the original bid team, Nigel was on the board of the Woolworth Holdings Plc from 1983 onwards. He held many positions within the group, including chairman of B&Q and human resources director of Woolworths. In 1989 he was instrumental in branding the expanded group Kingfisher, and he was responsible for legal and political issues, compliance and public affairs.
After leaving Kingfisher, Nigel carried on with good works – including helping the Department of Health to enable more 24-hour nursed accommodation for people with severe mental illness, before entering the world of agency public affairs.
Nigel was loyal to friends and family, and loved cricket, music, party-giving and party-going. His friends and colleagues treasured his acute legal mind, universal sympathy and love of life, whether he was hosting polo at Windsor Great Park or running the bar at his driver's wedding. Not long after retiring to Somerset, he was affected by cancer.
He is survived by Joyce, their three sons and his mother, Joan.
• Nigel Whittaker, lawyer and corporate consultant, born 7 November 1948; died 19 February 2011