House of Commons

Friday 3rd December 2010 Commons Chamber

Friday 3 December 2010

The House met at half-past Nine o’clock

Prayers

Friday 3rd December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

[Rebecca Harris (Castle Point) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the House sit in private.

Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 163), and negatived.

Daylight Saving Bill

Friday 3rd December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Relevant document: Minutes of Evidence taken before the Energy and Climate Change Committee on 28 October 2010, on the Effect on energy usage of extending British Summer Time, HC 562-i.]

Second Reading

09:34

[Rebecca Harris]

(Castle Point) (Con): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

As someone with a few years’ experience in the Chamber, you, Mr Speaker, are probably more familiar with the measure than I am, as this is far from being the first time the House has debated this subject. The question of how we best use our daylight hours has been debated for well over 100 years. Daylight saving proposals in one form or another have been brought to the House or to the other place on many occasions and by many more experienced and more distinguished parliamentarians than me.

Winston Churchill introduced single/double summer time during the war to save fuel and let people get home more safely during the blackout. In more recent memory, the measure was proposed by Nigel Beard and David Kidney as Labour Back-Benchers. Sir John Butterfill came closest to success in 1996, and my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (Mr Yeo) introduced a similar Bill on two occasions. Finally, I will not leave out my good friend Lord Tanlaw, who describes himself as a Scottish crofter and sits on the Cross Benches, and who, since introducing the measure, has become known as the Time Lord.

The fact that daylight saving has been championed by people all over the country and across the political spectrum suggests that it is not a party political issue. Hon. Members will note the remarkable range of more than 300 organisations backing the Bill as part of the Lighter Later coalition—such unusual bedfellows as the Kennel Club, Greenpeace, the British Beer and Pub Association, the England and Wales Cricket Board, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, the AA, the Football Association and Parentline Plus.

The campaign has garnered enormous public support, so much so that yesterday the superb Lighter Later campaigners delivered 9,000 individually written letters to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

I support the Bill. In the early days, organisations such as ROSPA did much to support measures on safety grounds, but does the hon. Lady agree that, with the challenge of climate change and the importance of reducing our carbon emissions, it is more important than ever that the bizarre practices that apply to private Members’ business on Fridays do not prevent the Bill from getting a full and proper hearing and reaching the statute book?

[Rebecca Harris]

I thank the hon. Lady for that helpful intervention. I agree. The arguments in favour of the measure now are more salient than they ever have been. I will go on to outline some of those issues, including the climate change impact that she is concerned about.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills yesterday received letters from people throughout the country—small children who like playing outside after school, elderly people who want to feel safer walking in the afternoon, local football teams who cannot afford to light their pitches, seasonal affective disorder sufferers who long for happier winters, and many doctors keen to reduce road traffic accidents and generally improve public health.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

I am very sympathetic to the hon. Lady’s Bill. Has she had representations, as I have, from amateur astronomers and from the strictly orthodox Jewish community?

[Rebecca Harris]

I can confirm that I have had two representations from amateur astronomers, saying that in the height of summer the measure could delay their ability to gaze at the stars for an extra hour, and I have had representations from the orthodox Jewish community that in the deep midwinter there could be problems in getting to work on time after morning prayers, which are daylight-sensitive.

I recognise and appreciate those concerns, and they are all the more reason why I call for a review. Those might not be insurmountable problems, and employers could be understanding in the darker weeks of winter. All those communities could, of course, get all the other benefits that the Bill would bring for their families and their children, so there might be some common ground.

Letters have been sent by parents who simply want their children to be safer on the roads and by environmentalists who are keen to cut carbon emissions. All those people, despite the different benefits they hope to obtain, believe that a small adjustment to our clocks could not only save scores of lives on the roads but make us happier, healthier and wealthier as a nation. Sadly, previous attempts to make progress on the issue have foundered, in peacetime at least.

Previous Bills have been talked out, kicked into the grass or had their Government support removed at the last moment. All too often, we have cast the facts aside, and emotion and, even, suspicion seem to have driven the House. Some hon. Members have seemed keener to explore the minutiae of marginal procedural issues or focused purely on the measure’s effects in deep winter and high summer, as though there were no benefits on those days or during the nine other months of the year—anything, rather than embrace the substance of the proposal.

[Mr Tim Yeo (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on introducing the Bill, of which I am an unqualified and enthusiastic supporter. Does she agree that, in addition to bringing benefits to millions of people throughout the United Kingdom, it is likely to increase Government revenues by hugely boosting the tourist trade?

[Rebecca Harris]

Absolutely, and, as my hon. Friend will know, I have received an enormous number of representations from the tourist trade, which has some quite interesting claims about the measure’s benefits. The Bill might also benefit the retail sector and the leisure sector, including sporting organisations, so its revenue potential is enormous.

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

My hon. Friend seems rather dismissive of the concerns of those in a constituency such as mine—where opinion seems evenly divided for and against the change—who are genuinely worried, for example, about children having to wait for school buses at the end of country lanes on many more dark mornings than they do now. Those concerns cannot simply be ignored or regarded as procedural.

[Rebecca Harris]

Perhaps I should not have taken that intervention at this stage, as I shall cover that issue in great detail later, but all the evidence shows that there are three times as many accidents among children in the evening rush hour as there are in the morning, which is why all the road safety organisations very much support the measure.

Previous debates have often generated more heat than daylight. [Interruption.] I am sorry, but it had to be done, I am afraid. Indeed, I have experienced some quite passionate debate myself. Little did I imagine, when I innocently put my name into the ballot for private Members’ Bills, that I would later be attacked for being a barbecue-obsessed Essex girl or, worse, a national traitor trying to take us on to Berlin time.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

On the German question, as a Welshman who comes from a constituency equidistant from northern Scotland and the Isle of Wight, I know that opinion is divided but that the vast majority are in favour. Does the hon. Lady, like me, dismiss the argument that we are any less British during the summer, when we move on to European summer time? I am sure that the European fans in her party will benefit from the measure, because many of them go to Europe anyway during the colder months.

[Rebecca Harris]

I certainly agree. There has been some debate about whether I am casting aside tradition by suggesting that we should no longer be on Greenwich mean time for five winter months. I am a great traditionalist and very proud of the fact that we gave Greenwich mean time to the world, but within only 50 years of our establishing GMT we realised that it was not quite appropriate to the way in which we lived our lives and moved the clocks forward in the summer months.

The issue is not about Berlin or getting rid of tradition; it is entirely about what is right for the residents of these islands and nothing else. It involves a simple question about how we should best use our daylight hours. Time is the most precious resource, and I am grateful to the large number of hon. Members who have given up their precious time today, despite the weather, to be in the Chamber. I refer in particular to my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Mr Brine), who has broken off his paternity leave to join us, and I am sure the House will join me in congratulating him on the arrival of baby William.

We cannot grow time, make more of it than we have or create additional daylight, but it is up to us to utilise both as best we can. We in this House determine what time regime the country uses to regulate everyone’s lives, and all I ask is that we ensure we set our clocks to everyone’s best advantage. Given the wealth of arguments in favour of change, the Government should surely ensure that they have it right. My Bill asks, therefore, for a review of whether we would be better off moving our clocks ahead one hour in winter, in summer or both.

Essentially, we would move an hour of daylight from the morning, when people use it least, to the afternoon or evening, when we could make better use of it, and, as most of us wake up well after sunrise for nine months a year and go to bed long after sunset, we could make better use of our daylight hours. As I have said, the reasons for change are stronger today than ever, which might explain why so many colleagues, particularly newly elected colleagues, are present to support the Bill.

Much of the evidence for change, gathered by a range of organisations and respected experts, seems to be strong and clear—some of it, unequivocal—but there are gaps, and too many people remain sceptical about the benefits that proponents of the measure claim. Without a clearer picture of the advantages and disadvantages, that might always remain the case: the status quo would be maintained, and we might miss out once again.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful case for her Bill, but does she recognise the concerns of constituents such as mine, who experience greater antisocial behaviour in the summer months, when it is lighter later, already, and are deeply concerned that such behaviour will extend well beyond 11 o’clock? She might cover such concerns later in her speech.

[Rebecca Harris]

Antisocial behaviour is a great scourge, and I understand and appreciate those concerns. People are out more and make more noise in the warmth of summer, but the difficulty that we and the police have is that quite a lot of youngsters escape under the cover of darkness. There is a big spike in antisocial behaviour not just in the summer months, but around Halloween and bonfire night, so there is no clear relationship between such behaviour and daylight hours.

[Matthew Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)]

In gathering evidence on the issue, will my hon. Friend ensure that the evidence of those who play and watch sport is taken into account? Sport continuing later can help to deal with antisocial behaviour, so today, with our cricketers in Australia, will she ensure that the evidence recognises how frustrating it is to millions of cricket fans throughout the country when bad light stops play?

[Rebecca Harris]

There is strong evidence that increased youth participation in sport, in particular, can reduce antisocial behaviour and low-level crime by about 18%. That is a very strong point.

The central problem with our previous attempts to introduce daylight saving has been an absence of all the evidence, so I have sought to draft my Bill differently. My Bill, unlike previous measures, does not enforce an immediate change or seek to enforce my views or those of my colleagues on anyone; it simply asks the Government to conduct a cross-Government study of the benefits of the move.

I should like to investigate the current asymmetry of the clock change, which curiously moves us on to winter time two months ahead of the shortest day and continues for three months after. The clause might be seen as a special gift to the hon. Member for—I shall say “the western isles”, because I do not wish to irk Scottish Members any more than is absolutely necessary—Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil). That is a particular interest of his, so I hope that he will support at least that measure in my Bill.

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

May I say how pleased I am that the hon. Lady has introduced the Bill? I shall be here to support it later. On the Scottish question, if I can put it like that, given that the hon. Gentleman whom she has just cited is, in particular, anxious for increased independence from the UK, should we not have an option that enables Scotland to have its own time zone if it disagrees with the rest of us?

[Rebecca Harris]

I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman, because I do not think that it would benefit Scotland, or any other part of the British isles, to have a separate time zone. From the evidence that has been gathered to date, it appears that this move would benefit Scotland over and above England and Wales. The short length of Scotland’s daylight hours in winter makes it all the more critical that they are deployed better. Road traffic accident statistics suggest strongly that to do so would save the lives of Scottish children.

The benefits for tourism could be greater for Scotland, because it is dependent on tourism for 11% of its economy, whereas the figure for England is 3%. There are numerous other benefits, such as saving energy. It would be a mistake for us to see the move as a disbenefit to Scotland and to suggest that it requires a separate time zone.

[Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)]

I draw my hon. Friend’s attention to the Library research paper, which refers to the simulation of the previous experiment by the Transport and Road Research Laboratory. It indicates that the number of people killed and seriously injured in the north of Scotland went up during the experiment.

[Rebecca Harris]

I think that my hon. Friend will find that the figures for Scotland show that there was a higher reduction in road deaths as a proportion of the population of the whole of Scotland. The vast majority of Scots live in the central belt of Scotland. The research found that it was beneficial for Scotland overall and that there was a net gain.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

The issue of Scotland is critical to the debate. Had the experiment of 1968 to 1971 continued until today, more than 3,500 people who have been killed in Scotland would be alive today.

[Rebecca Harris]

I shall return to my speech, having taken many interventions.

I ask only that the Government take an objective, informed decision based on the best available evidence so that all the questions can be looked at properly before a decision is taken. If the opponents are correct and the evidence in favour of change is not as clear-cut as many organisations and experts suggest, or if the move would unfairly disadvantage any country of the United Kingdom, my Bill would not require anything further to happen. Surely, therefore, no one need fear the study proposed in the Bill. Even the most vehement opponent of change cannot reasonably object to this modest request. However, if I and the supporters of this measure are right that there are clear benefits to the whole—I stress, the whole—of the United Kingdom, it would be wrong not to go ahead with a proper trial.

Although I am certain that hon. Members have had ample opportunity to consider the arguments in favour of the measure, I will rehearse them briefly. First, every single road safety organisation tells me that the measure would save 80 lives on our roads every year, mainly among children under 15 and other vulnerable road users. If a transport disaster of that magnitude occurred in our country and the Government knew that it would happen every year—year in, year out—but proposed to do nothing about it, there would be a public outcry.

However, there remains a kind of race memory that the winter-only trial of GMT plus one between 1968 and 1970 led to increased road deaths, particularly among children going to school on dark winter mornings, as has been mentioned. That persistent myth has hampered the debate ever since, and it is simply not true. Extensive research by the Transport Research Laboratory found that, far from causing accidents—the view that, sadly, led to the experiment being abandoned in panic—the change resulted in an astonishing 1,120 fewer people being killed or seriously injured during the affected hours.

The principal reason behind those figures is that more accidents occur in the busy afternoon rush hour. There are currently three times as many accidents, particularly involving children, between 3 and 6 pm than between 7 and 10 am. In the mornings, we tend to travel directly, we leave just as much time as we need to get to our destination and the roads are less busy. In the afternoons, we make much more complicated journeys and people are much less attentive—children, in particular, feel liberated after leaving school. That is why moving an extra hour of daylight into the dangerous, busy peak time for travel would be beneficial for road safety. As I have said, that applies to an even greater extent in Scotland and, despite the conventional wisdom, I believe that Scotland stands to benefit the most from this measure.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that another myth that has grown up around the daylight saving issue is that the country clearly rejected the experiment when it ended in the ’70s? In fact, the Home Secretary of the time presented polling to the House to show that the public were in favour of the switch.

[Rebecca Harris]

Yes, Reginald Maudling presented evidence to the House to show that a majority of people in the country were in favour of the change. As often happens, the people who are against something, nervous about it or frightened of it speak more loudly than those who are in favour. We have all experienced that. Unusually, the campaigners for this change have been the louder voices.

[Albert Owen]

Poll findings are important. I am uncertain what the polling said in 1970 when the experiment was abandoned, but today, even in Scotland, the majority is in favour of the measure, because, among other things, transport infrastructure has changed radically. As a Member who represents a rural constituency, I point out that the National Farmers Union in Scotland is neutral on or in favour of the measure.

[Rebecca Harris]

It is clear from the last three polls conducted in Scotland that there is a majority in favour. If one explains to people from Scotland the road safety evidence of an 11% drop in accidents in England and Wales and a 17% drop in Scotland, the number of people in favour goes up.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

I have tried, as best I can, to assess the opinions in my constituency. This is in no sense scientific polling, but the majority of opinion seems to be in favour of giving the proposal the green light. Having said that, the views are most mixed among those who remember the last experiment. That is why we need a proper assessment of the evidence.

As I understand it, under the Bill, the commission would make the final decision on whether to introduce the new time arrangements and the House would not have an opportunity to have the final say. That concerns me, and I would be interested to hear the hon. Lady’s comments. Perhaps the issue could be addressed by amendments at a later stage.

[Rebecca Harris]

The matter would have to come before Parliament again, but such matters could be ironed out in Committee.

The hon. Gentleman spoke of the experiment in the late ’60s. It should be remembered that that was a winter-only trial. No one experienced the benefits of the change in the seven summer months. The enormous benefits to everyone of longer evenings are much more noticeable in the spring, autumn and summer. That should be borne in mind when we consider that experiment and the reactions to it at the time.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

I confirm that I had misread the provision regarding the matter coming back to the House. However, it is important that there is as full and objective an assessment as possible, because what is relevant for my constituents in south-east Scotland might be very different from what is relevant for the constituents of hon. Members from further to the north and west. Those points must be considered properly.

[Rebecca Harris]

It is a specific provision of the Bill that the benefits should be considered in relation to all parts of the British isles.

[Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

I understand the hon. Lady’s arguments as they relate to summer—most of the arguments are much stronger for the summer months than for the winter months. Is she really convinced that the people of London will be happy when they realise that in midwinter, they will enjoy sunrise 18 minutes later than Aberdeen currently enjoys it in mid-winter?

[Rebecca Harris]

As I said at the outset, one of the strange aspects of every discussion of this measure is the tendency always to look at the extremes rather than the benefits across the country. Of course, a darker morning means a lighter afternoon—somehow, we always seem to forget that in debates.

The road safety figures for deaths and accidents have been examined, re-examined and updated over and again by the experts. The Department for Transport does not dispute that this measure would save lives and prevent injuries. That is why the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents has been campaigning for the change for more than 60 years. It is backed up by every other road safety body, and I am afraid I am going to list them: the road victims charity Brake, the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation, the road traffic committee of the Magistrates’ Association, GEM Motoring Assist, the AA, Road Safety GB, the Royal Automobile Club and the Institute of Advanced Motoring. I apologise if I have left anyone off that list. Those organisations are unanimous in backing the Bill, and hon. Members will already have received correspondence from many of them encouraging them to support it.

The opportunity to save the lives of 80 people a year, mainly children, is enough reason on its own for the Bill to pass. However, there are other, economic benefits. Our tourism and leisure industry is a major employer, accounting for 3% of gross domestic product in England and Wales, 4% in Northern Ireland and 11% in Scotland. Tourism bodies such as the British Association of Leisure Parks, Piers and Attractions, Visit England and the Tourism Alliance have been pleading for the change for more than a decade. Just this week the Caravan Club has also given backing to my Bill, and I think we can all agree that it and its more than 1 million members probably know a little bit about holidaying in the UK.

An extra hour of daylight at the end of the day would not only be an extra hour all year round for many attractions to stay open and trading; it would also extend the summer tourist season. In effect, the long hours of the average June would become the hours of May and July, giving our tourism businesses the longer summers that their continental competitors take for granted. The industry confidently estimates that an advance in the clocks would result in increased revenue of between £3 billion and £3.5 billion and the creation of up to 70,000 to 80,000 new jobs. That would amount to a significant fiscal injection, with no input from the taxpayer.

[Mr Don Foster (Bath) (LD)]

The hon. Lady rightly raises the important issue of tourism, which would receive one of the many benefits of moving in the direction that she proposes. Will she remind the House that the figures that she has just referred to are for the United Kingdom overall, and that in Scotland alone, the evidence shows that the change would bring something in the region of 7,000 additional jobs?

[Rebecca Harris]

That is correct. That is the analysis we have, so we can see already the advantages in Scotland. Attractions and venues could stay open, there would be more walking, and golf clubs in Scotland, which I know some hon. Members visit, could stay open.

[Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con)]

When I was examining the tourism issue, I was interested to learn of the importance to Scotland of the walking industry. People who say that walking is part of their holiday in Scotland contribute close to £100 million a year. On top of that, the change would make it easier for rescue agencies, who say that one problem is the fast-closing nights at certain times of year. It would be safer and better for tourism in Scotland.

[Rebecca Harris]

That is a very good point, and I certainly argue that the tourism benefit holds true right across the country.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree there would be particularly disproportionate benefits to seaside towns, which have struggled to regenerate down the years? Many workers in inland towns come to the seaside for their holidays during their two precious summer weeks off, particularly those from heavy industry. There would be a particular benefit for seaside towns and the workers who holiday in them.

[Rebecca Harris]

I can certainly see the enormous benefits that the change would bring to towns such as Blackpool and to all other parts of our domestic tourism economy.

[Simon Kirby (Brighton, Kemptown) (Con)]

Brighton is a very long way from Scotland, but 14,000 jobs there depend on tourism, and nearly 9 million visitors spend a staggering three quarters of a billion pounds there each and every year. There is a lot of benefit to the whole country in the proposals.

[Rebecca Harris]

Cases are being made from around the country, and the tourism case holds true everywhere. The Northern Ireland Tourist Board has supported the change since 1996, and National Galleries of Scotland is backing it today.

It is also worth noting that whereas the farming industry objected to increased daylight saving 40 years ago, it has now adopted a much more positive stance. That is not just because farming practices have changed considerably over the years but because farmers have now diversified into tourism and leisure, with farm stays and a range of outdoor activities. The National Farmers Union in England and Wales has been officially neutral on the matter for years, and now NFU Scotland has come out in favour of my Bill. I should like to read what its spokesman has said:

“We have been described as being vigorously opposed to this but it is not quite as simple as that. To move the discussion forward”—

that is what I am hoping to do through my Bill—

“we do support the private member’s bill…which would propose in-depth analysis of the impact of any change—a key concern for Scotland—before any permanent change to the clocks is proposed.”

I have never doubted the common sense of farmers in any part of the country. Visit Scotland has taken a similar stance, in view of its interest in visits to Scotland.

The tourism and leisure industry is not the only potential beneficiary, however. Extra daylight could be of enormous benefit to the entire retail sector, and according to a recent Greater London authority report promoting a clock change, even our very popular and well-loved financial and banking sector stands to benefit from being an extra hour closer to the markets in Asia.

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for taking so many interventions. I am a great supporter of the Lighter Later campaign, but does she agree that this discussion is not just about the arguments for and against the change, which are being debated excellently this morning, but also about what the Chamber is for? We must represent the country outside these four walls. This issue has arisen again and again and is of concern to people outside, whereas some issues that we debate may not be of so much concern. Does my hon. Friend agree that allowing the Bill to go forward for further scrutiny will be testament to the fact that the House represents the people outside these four walls?

[Rebecca Harris]

I agree entirely, and as I said earlier, Bills such as this have come around again and again. They are usually talked out and run out of time, and nothing further happens. They are not taken forward, so various Departments do not get their heads together to investigate the benefits or enter into discussions with the various parts of the United Kingdom. The proposal dies again until some brave or naive soul such as myself picks it up in a private Member’s Bill. There is then a vigorous and exciting campaign for six months, and then if it does not get through to Committee, the Government do not decide to examine properly the benefits across all Departments. Nothing happens, the debate does not move forward, entrenched views stay the same for ever and we never get over the hurdles.

[Mr Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for her earlier congratulations. She knows that I support the Bill, and I am sure that baby William does as well, although I have no idea why, because daylight hours seem to mean little to him. I am still standing, however.

We have debated the importance of the Bill’s not dying and disappearing again for another few years. However, Ministers are in Cancun at the moment, and surely the Bill’s energy-saving implications mean that there is real urgency behind the idea that that must not happen this time. Such factors were not discussed, debated and evaluated in the 1970s when the matter last came around.

[Rebecca Harris]

That is a very good point. Had the experiment coincided with the energy crisis, a very different view might have been taken in the House. I suggest that we now have an energy crisis of our own.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady has just made a point about the history of Governments’ attitudes to the proposals. Should not the unique attraction of the Bill to any Government be not just that it commands overwhelming support in the country and the House, and that the evidence in favour of it is overwhelming, but that no other piece of legislation has the potential to spread so much happiness across the United Kingdom?

[Rebecca Harris]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman. The urgent need to create new jobs and growth at the moment is another salient point. We are in a challenging economic situation, and I do not believe that any hon. Member can really think that we should ignore a potential boost to the economy of 80,000 new jobs at no cost to the taxpayer.

If colleagues are not yet convinced by the need to save lives or boost the economy, I wonder whether the potential health benefits will sway them. We all know what happens when it gets dark—people go back inside and often find themselves slumped in front of the Parliament channel, and opportunities for far more productive activity are lost.

Hundreds of sports clubs and sporting bodies support the Bill, although I am happy to say that neither FIFA nor Sepp Blatter are among them. The Central Council of Physical Recreation, which changed its name this week—I cannot remember the new name—is an umbrella organisation for more than 300 sporting organisations, including the Football Association, the Lawn Tennis Association and the England and Wales Cricket Board. In a letter to hon. Members, it said:

“We are convinced beyond doubt of the benefits that this move would bring to both the grassroots of sport and the nation’s health as a whole”.

It goes on to point out that increased participation in sport is known to increase social and civic participation, reduce youth crime and reduce chronic illness, not least obesity. I have been flooded—absolutely inundated—with letters from amateur sports groups, youth leaders and schoolteachers, who all describe how much they could do and achieve in their communities if their activities were not curtailed so early in the evening by dusk, particularly in autumn and spring. I even received a very supportive petition from a ladies’ carpet bowls club in Yorkshire. Other likely health benefits have been highlighted by the medical profession. They include relief for sufferers of seasonal affective disorder and reduction in vitamin D deficiency.

The potential for the Bill to reduce crime deserves a Government investigation. A very high proportion of crime takes place under the cover of evening darkness. Back in 1995, a Home Office report stated that an extra hour of daylight in the evening would lead to a 3% reduction in crime. I do not expect that crime patterns have changed all that dramatically since that survey, and a lot of opportunistic crime occurs when darkness falls before people get home from school or work.

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

My hon. Friend perhaps does herself a disservice, because there has been a change. The peak in crime used to be when the pubs closed, but it is now when the schools chuck out. Extending daylight hours to when schoolchildren are going home could have a real benefit in terms of crime and antisocial behaviour.

[Rebecca Harris]

Of course, that is what the Bill seeks to do, and what my hon. Friend says coincides with the accident reduction figures.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

Is it not self-evident that with increased daylight hours, the fear of crime and of going out among older people will be reduced?

[Rebecca Harris]

My hon. Friend anticipates my next comment. Age UK and Saga have told me how much safer older people will feel, and how their fear of crime will be drastically reduced, with longer daylight hours. A lot of older people suffer a self-imposed curfew when it gets dark. Many will not even answer their door after 4 o’clock in the evening in winter. I am not promoting the Bill because it will help politicians in their canvassing in the evenings, but we all know from our experience of people who are very uncomfortable even coming to the front door.

I have received a large volume of letters from older people. I was quite upset to find that many older people feel lonely and that they cannot get out and enjoy social activities. Some people will not drive simply because of the glare on their glasses. One particularly upsetting letter said:

“Please will you make a point of being present to vote for the Lighter Later bill. Many old people living alone don’t see anybody for up to 18 hours once it gets dark &…lonely. I know as I am one of them! (Peter died last year).”

That is quite heartbreaking.

Finally, there is the clear potential to save energy—I am sure that other hon. Members will speak at great length on that because it is a pressing concern. The Bill has a clear potential to help us cut our fuel use. Because the majority of us get up after dawn for more than nine months of the year but few households go to sleep before dusk, we use artificial light every night of the year. An extra hour of free daylight each day would cut our electricity bills, and that would be offset only by extra electricity bills in the short winter months.

In the shoulder months either side of mid-winter, the peak demand for electricity occurs when dusk falls. We come home from school or work at half-past 5 and put on the lights, the kettle, the TV and computer games, because it is dark. If we move daylight ahead and allow people to do all those wonderful social activities and go to sports clubs and all the rest, we will flatten that peak demand, which will mean that our national grid will not need so much power on standby. We will save not only on what we use, but on the power we must keep on standby to meet peak demands. The Bill has the clear potential to reduce our electricity consumption at no cost whatever.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

That issue is very close to my heart. Does the hon. Lady agree that the Bill would lead to savings of nearly £180 million a year on household electricity bills? That would make a significant difference to fuel poverty, which affects so many of our constituents.

[Rebecca Harris]

Fuel poverty is another problem that we did not have at the time of the winter-only experiment of ’68 to ’71. That is another incredibly important reason why we need the Government to look again at the benefits and details of extending daylight hours. We could achieve the savings to which the hon. Lady refers at no cost.

Extensive research by the Cambridge university department for engineering and National Grid does not dispute that we could cut our electricity consumption by at least 0.5%, which is equivalent to a wind farm of 200 very expensively produced wind turbines. I accept that that is a fraction of the CO₂ reduction to which we are committed, but it is none the less significant, and it can be done without the purchase of a single smart meter or a single square foot of insulation.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

I believe that a study by the university of Cambridge says that the change would lead to a saving of 500,000 tonnes of CO₂ each year, which would obviously help the environment.

[Rebecca Harris]

The modelling from Dr Garnsey’s team at Cambridge suggests that we could cut our carbon emissions by the equivalent of taking nearly 200,000 cars off our roads each year. That is why serious environmental pressure groups such as 10:10 are so heavily behind the Bill.

I believe that the proposal could do a great deal of good for our whole country, which is what I came to this Chamber to do. I appreciate that many simply have an aversion to darker winter mornings—I confess that I am not wild about them—and that may well turn out to be the crux of the issue. However, I might have a different perspective on darker winter mornings if I were assured that a darker start to the beginning of the working day in winter allowed, for example, millions of older people to have a better quality of life. If the benefits were found by a Government review to be as stated by the Bill’s backers—the change could mean that my son and other people’s children were safer on the roads and enjoyed more outdoor play; that people were healthier and there would be more in employment; that more revenue came into the Exchequer; that CO₂ emissions would be cut with no extra subsidy from the taxpayer; and that I would have an extra hour of daylight later on to enjoy as I see fit, although obviously only during recess—I might even feel quite positive about dark winter mornings.

My Bill asks not for anything impractical or costly, but merely for the Government to look at the evidence and make a decision that is based on the facts rather than what is politically expedient. I accept that I may be a naive new Member of Parliament—in fact, after taking on this private Member’s Bill, I am convinced of that—but I believe we should always strive to make decisions based on evidence not suspicion, fact not prejudice, and data not conjecture.

This is a decades-old debate, but the arguments are now so compelling that it would be foolish to dismiss the case for change without first conducting a review of the evidence. I do not deny that there is a place for emotion in politics and some may find that emotion is important in the context of the Bill, but Parliament has a responsibility, as my hon. Friends have pointed out, to dictate the time by which our modern lives are regulated. We have a duty to every single one of the 60 million residents of the United Kingdom to ensure that when we set the time for them, we make the right choice. We must ask ourselves whether the proposal is the best, or least worst, option for people living their lives in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. My Bill simply asks that the question be put to the Government, so that we can get a clear answer on which to base our future decisions. With that, I commend the Bill to the House.

10:18

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris), and I congratulate her on promoting the Bill in this debate. I know that she has been inundated with hundreds and thousands of e-mails. I had a private Member’s Bill in the previous Session, and I became very popular very quickly. When a Member dismisses most of those representations, they become unpopular, before undertaking the onerous task of taking their Bill through Parliament. The hon. Lady presented her case with a great sense of humour and a sense of purpose. The Bill is important, and I have supported such measures for a long time.

The hon. Lady listed supporters of the Bill in the excellent Library briefing. She was brave enough to mention the English Football Association the day after the Zurich decision, and she also mentioned the England and Wales Cricket Board. I know that the Ashes are on now, although I do not know the score. If it is positive, I am happy to call it the England and Wales Cricket Board, but if they lose the Ashes, I am happy to refer to them as the England team.

[Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)]

I believe that Australia were all out for 275.

[Albert Owen]

I am grateful for that information, and I hope it continues. I am also disappointed about yesterday’s decision.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

They were actually all out for 245, and England survived the one remaining over, scoring one run.

[Albert Owen]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for shining light on the situation.

I support the Bill. I will develop an argument on the energy saving to which the hon. Lady referred, but I make no apologies for emphasising and rehearsing some of the arguments she made on tourism, sports and leisure. In many ways, the Bill is a moderate measure, in that it simply asks the Government to conduct a comprehensive cross-departmental review of the cost benefits of the savings that could be made to the country—she mentioned some headlines to do with that.

I think that we should advance the time by one hour for part or all of the year. I support the latter, and I think that it is important to conduct a three-year study to establish the summer and winter comparisons. It is also important to report back to the House. Perhaps the hon. Lady could intervene on me—although she is having a private discussion at the moment—to clarify something: the Bill does not make it clear whether the commission would have to report to the House after the six months, so that we can have a debate and come to a decision. I am sure that she will have an opportunity, as the Bill develops, to inform the House on that point. It is important for the House to make a decision based on the judgment of an independent commission.

I am proud that the Bill contains special measures for different parts of the United Kingdom. It is important that we consider not just the Scottish question, but the Northern Ireland one as well. It is one of the most north-westerly parts of the UK. It is important that we consider those different parts of the UK when balancing the evidence. I am old enough to remember the 1960s and ’70s, when this experiment was first done, in great detail. At the time, I was—at least I thought I was—working and helping out on a farm, although the farmer probably thought I was getting in the way at times. I remember that period as a child going to school and working in the summer months on farms at early hours of the morning, so I have some experience of that period. It is important to consider the different parts of the United Kingdom, as well as the different parts of Government, in order to get a full picture before making decisions.

As the hon. Lady said, the benefits outweigh any problems that might occur. There would be less crime, fewer road accidents and fatalities, and increased recreational activities and tourism, which would provide a boost for all parts of the UK, particularly those north-western regions. As the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) said, the coastal areas and resorts of the UK will benefit hugely from visitors, not just from overseas, but from different parts of the UK. As somebody who represents a coastal area, I know the benefits that could be achieved.

There could also be improvements in health and well-being. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) said, the Prime Minister is big on a happiness index. Although happiness is difficult to quantify, I honestly believe that the benefits of the Bill will improve the well-being of the people of the UK. I get depressed in October when the clocks go back. Many Members will have anecdotal evidence of the same thing. The benefits of the Bill in the summer, from recreation, sport and health activities, would also be very important.

I want to refer predominantly to the energy savings. The Energy and Climate Change Committee, of which I am a member, conducted a mini inquiry into the matter in October. As the hon. Lady said, the energy saving factors today represent the big difference from the arguments of the 1960s and ’70s. Back then, energy security was not the big issue it is today. We had plentiful supplies of indigenous coal, and then we moved on to the benefits of North sea gas, so we did not think of energy security in the same way as we do today. Obviously, our minds have been changed by environmental and climate change issues as well. That is the big difference.

It was important that the Select Committee considered the benefits of energy savings. The positive nature of the evidence given by the academics from the university of Cambridge study and from a representative of the National Grid was stark. I stress that the mini inquiry considered electricity demand alone. Perhaps we should also have looked at the gas benefits. We might get the opportunity to do that in the future. As the hon. Lady said, the first thing people do in October when the clocks go back, is adjust their thermostats and the timings on their gas boilers, so that gas is used much earlier in the evening. That has an impact. Were we to quantify gas consumption as we can electricity, the environmental, climate change and CO₂ emission benefits from the reduction of CO₂ would be very obvious. We must take that forward. As the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) said, that would help with fuel poverty. I think that it is estimated that £200 million could be saved in electricity bills alone, and adding gas to that would make a massive difference to vulnerable people in this country. There are massive benefits to be had there.

The question and answer session that the Select Committee held with the academics and National Grid showed that there would be massive benefits, particularly in the shoulder months of November, February and March. That is when demand increases significantly. It is worth pointing out that throughout the UK there would be very little difference in demand in the months of December and January, because that is when, whatever we do with the clocks, there will be the greatest amount of darkness.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman not feel, when he talks about the shoulder months, that he is actually arguing for a shorter, more symmetrical period of winter time, rather than the seven weeks before and the 14 weeks after new year that we have at the moment?

[Albert Owen]

No, quite the opposite. That is why I pointed out that there would be little difference during December and January.

As the hon. Member for Castle Point pointed out, the benefits from March to October would far outweigh any of the discomfort that people feel during December and January, which are the bleak winter months.

[Malcolm Bruce]

The proponents of the Bill are in danger of taking as fact research evidence that is highly qualified. After it attempted to analyse the figures, the university of Cambridge used words such as “probably increased” and

“could have a range of energy benefits”.

The Government said that the information was not conclusive one way or the other.

[Albert Owen]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention, but that is not the evidence we had most recently.

[Malcolm Bruce]

It is the evidence I have here.

[Albert Owen]

Well, I was the person asking the questions, and I know that the Library notes are very thick. One survey, on buildings—particularly office buildings—was not conclusive, but on domestic homes and electricity peak demands, the evidence was to the contrary, which is why I am arguing that we need to consider gas consumption as well as electricity demands. We would then get a much clearer picture to show the benefits of energy savings.

[Mr Foster]

In responding to my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce), surely the hon. Gentleman might have pointed out that the Bill proposes more detailed research on such matters—research that I am convinced will lead to the sort of evidence to which he is referring.

[Albert Owen]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his help. I will develop the argument that what we are asking for is a full review over three years, so that we can have all the up-to-date evidence that we need to make a conscious decision in this House. That is an important point, because in many ways the academic research done by Cambridge university was narrow in its remit. I was disappointed by some of the answers of the academics who had looked at the issue, although I was very much encouraged by the National Grid representative, who talked about the energy savings that would be made immediately—now, today—on the basis of the evidence and the data available to National Grid.

Many of the benefits in the shoulder months relate to the reduction in electricity used of some 1,300 MW. I pushed the National Grid representative on what that would mean. It would mean one power station in the United Kingdom closing for one hour a day during the shoulder months. That would mean a significant amount of electricity being saved, alongside the savings in CO₂, which would be in the region of 500,000 tonnes, and—I emphasise this point again because it is important—a reduction in what consumers pay of some £200 million.

[Damian Collins]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there could also be a benefit from reducing the need to import energy? We have an electricity link from my constituency of Folkestone and Hythe to France, from which we need to import electricity at peak times just to meet the demand.

[Albert Owen]

Yes, and I did mention energy security. Indeed, we can break that down and talk about microgeneration, whereby individual houses and community buildings send electricity back to the grid. That is all part of the wider argument about saving energy that I am putting forward. In moving the motion, the hon. Member for Castle Point made strong arguments about other aspects, which I will touch on, but the energy saving argument is the big difference between now and the ’60s and ’70s, and it is one that we should push.

[Mr MacNeil]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Albert Owen]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman one last time.

[Mr MacNeil]

I would just like to draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to the evidence from the Building Research Establishment, which indicated that darkened mornings might lead to increased electricity consumption, as people who switch the lights on in the morning may leave them on for the rest of the day.

[Albert Owen]

I responded to the right hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce) about that survey, which looked at offices. Let us be honest: most people who put their lights on in the offices do not pay the bills, so they are reluctant to come into line. However, households do have to pay those bills, so there is a difference, particularly in a climate where energy prices are rising for domestic households. That survey was about major office buildings. A lot of those office buildings were built in the ’60s or ’70s, and do not have proper insulation, so they are not very good buildings in the first instance. However, the National Grid representative made it absolutely clear that peak demand would be reduced if there was an extension to British summer time.

[Mr Reid]

The hon. Gentleman’s analysis is flawed because he is looking only at electricity. Electricity is used for both heating and lighting. There is evidence that lighting costs would be reduced by the change, but that heating costs would be increased. That means that the use of other fuels—gas, oil and coal—would almost certainly increase, meaning that the total effect of the change would be increased carbon emissions.

[Albert Owen]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman was listening when I argued that we needed more evidence on gas. However, one thing that is clear is that people in areas that are off-grid—areas such as mine and, I am sure, his—are paying more for fuel. Electricity is pretty universal across the United Kingdom, but there are certain areas—periphery areas in particular—that are off the gas grid. Those areas have to pay for oil or liquefied petroleum gas, and they therefore pay more. Far from the proposal being flawed, the evidence will show that with an extra hour in the evenings in November, February and March, those people will use less fuel. However, that is why the Bill is asking for a trial period. All that evidence will be produced and will, I think, lead to the conclusion—indeed, I am certain that it will to this conclusion, as happened with electricity—that lead consumption would be reduced and energy saved if we had that additional hour in the summer and, in particular, the shoulder months of the winter.

I want to talk about the benefits that the Bill and its outcome—if the commission were to move British summer time—would have for tourism. The United Kingdom has a great product to sell, but often local trade is lost in the winter as people go home from work, owing to darkness falling across the United Kingdom relatively early. The extension of an hour in the winter months and, in particular, the summer months would benefit our tourism industry, retail outlets and sporting activities. There is a massive plus there that we need to consider when we look at the big picture.

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

We have been talking about the changing significance of the proposal since the previous experiment. Tourism and leisure are proportionately more important, given the changing structure of our industries, so does the hon. Gentleman agree that the employment argument is now very significant?

[Albert Owen]

I certainly agree that tourism is increasingly important to the British economy—there is absolutely no doubt about that—and if we in this House can get extra benefits for it, we will be doing a good thing.

As the hon. Member for Castle Point said in her opening remarks, the Bill would be proportionately beneficial to Scotland, Northern Ireland and periphery areas. It is important for the United Kingdom to have more even economic development for those areas. This Bill offers a win-win situation for areas in Scotland, Northern Ireland and my constituency in north-west Wales. As the hon. Lady also said, the nature of what the study in the ’60s looked at has changed. Agriculture trends have changed considerably, through mechanisation and vehicle transport. That is why the National Farmers Union of England and Wales is now neutral on the Bill—it is not hostile—and why the National Farmers Union of Scotland is in favour. That is hugely beneficial.

[Mr Reid]

It is only fair to put on record the fact that in its response, the National Farmers Union of Scotland heavily stressed the study aspect of the Bill. It was not in favour of the clock change, but stressed the need for a study before anything else was done.

[Albert Owen]

The hon. Gentleman is right to put that on the record, but again he is enhancing my argument in favour of the Bill. The National Farmers Union of Scotland was very much against the proposal in the ’60s and ’70s, but it now wants a study because it believes that there could be overall benefits. That is a huge move on the part of an organisation that in many ways is slow to change its policies.

There are, of course, other arguments used by opponents of the Bill. One is that they would feel less British, which I mentioned in an earlier intervention. I am an ex-seafarer. I know how important GMT is to the world. However, that would remain exactly the same, and for the months of March to October we move to European time anyway, so that one can be dismissed pretty easily—

[Mr Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

rose—

[Albert Owen]

—although I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will argue to the contrary.

[Mr Gale]

I am entirely in support of everything that the hon. Gentleman is saying. Setting aside the Daily Mail’s xenophobia for a moment, the editor of the Mail might like to recognise that there is one little corner of a foreign field—Gibraltar, which could not be more British—that is on that time the year round.

[Albert Owen]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman, and I am sorry that I misread him. He and I do not agree on quite a few issues, but I am very happy to have him on side on this one. He mentioned the Daily Mail. It is only fair to mention the Daily Express, which has been actively campaigning for the Bill and for extra daylight hours in the evenings. I thank him for giving me the opportunity to point that out, and he is absolutely right about the benefit that parts of Europe, especially Gibraltar, enjoy.

I want to draw my remarks to a conclusion. This is a good Bill. It is a good idea, and it would be good for the United Kingdom. However, I want to see those independent analyses of the four nations, which will be important in making our mind up. This is not an anti-Scottish Bill; it is a pro-UK Bill. It would benefit the whole of the United Kingdom. The proposals would reduce energy consumption. The evidence relating to electricity demonstrates that, and there would also be benefits for gas consumption. Crime would also be reduced, because opportunist crime peaks during October and November when it gets dark before people come home from work, so their properties are empty after nightfall.

The hon. Member for Castle Point mentioned the reduction of accidents and fatalities on our roads, and it is essential that we address that point in the Bill. The increase in tourism would be very positive, as would the increase in sports and leisure. Who likes going to a football match in the winter when it gets dark early and they have to put the floodlights on by half-time?

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

Or at the kick-off.

[Albert Owen]

I agree that there is an argument about summer football, which the hon. Gentleman is making from a sedentary position, but cricket has traditionally dominated the summer period—particularly in England—while football dominates the winter. Also, we now have the Twenty20 series throughout the year, so perhaps we could review that position. That is not a matter for this Bill, however.

The Bill would allow us to take a massive positive step. Although the measure is moderate, its outcomes would be profound.

[Mr MacNeil]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Albert Owen]

I will not give way. I shall finish my speech now so that other people can have the opportunity to speak.

I believe that the measure would increase our well-being. In the spirit of cross-party support here, I believe that we should look at the happiness agenda. I think that having a barbecue at 11.30 pm, using clean coal and perhaps serving some salad dishes in the summer would increase the well-being and happiness of people throughout the United Kingdom—

[Mr MacNeil]

Low carbon!

[Albert Owen]

I did say “clean coal”. The hon. Gentleman is always jumping in; he is a bit too keen. I was talking about clean coal, and eating salads and healthy dishes so that we can participate in sport. The measure would increase the well-being of the people in the United Kingdom, and that is what we have been sent to this House for. I am happy to support the Bill and happy to help to take it forward in the House.

10:41

[Mr Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) on introducing this very sensible measure. I have a sneaking feeling that Sir Bernard Braine would be extremely proud, were he around to hear her speak today. The point has been made, and it will be made again, that, if the proposal before us were adopted, it would enhance tourism and road safety, that it would be very good for sport and for the economy of the British isles as a whole, and that it would probably enhance the happiness and well-being of the nation generally. That is why I wholeheartedly support my hon. Friend’s Bill, and why I believe that we should come into line with Gibraltar time and adopt this measure.

I want to cover just one issue briefly. My friend, the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) raised the possibility of Scotland exercising a choice in this matter. I do not think that that is a ridiculous or improper suggestion, and I do not think that it would in any way damage the unity of the United Kingdom. Scotland has its own Parliament and it takes its own decisions. It is certainly marginally true that there are areas in the far north of Scotland that would be a little more affected by these proposals than anywhere else in the United Kingdom. I am not speaking as a founder member of the Rebuild Hadrian’s Wall Society, but it is incorrect to say that the concept of having one time zone south of the wall, or border, and another on the other side of it is unacceptable.

A gentleman in the Library called Oliver Bennett has been extremely helpful to us all, and we should thank him for his hard work on this subject. He has advised me that, over the four mainland time zones in the United States, there are inevitably towns in which crossing a bridge can take someone from one time zone to another. One such town has two time zones separated by a river. That happens and it is manageable. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys)—I hope that she catches your eye in due course, Mr Deputy Speaker—and I represent part of the United Kingdom that is 25 miles away from a different time zone for part of the year. That is 30 minutes away by train, and the difference is perfectly manageable. It is not an impossibility. In the United States, the Department of Transportation is, curiously, responsible for determining whether a county should change from one time zone to another.

[Mr David Hamilton (Midlothian) (Lab)]

That is also true of the Soviet Union, or Russia, where there are 11 time zones, often separated by rivers and bridges. Having different time zones is undesirable, however, in a small country such as the United Kingdom. Surely the hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that it would be desirable for the UK.

[Mr Gale]

I am not necessarily saying that it is desirable; I am saying that it is practicably possible, if that is what the Scots want.

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

If separate time zones were operating across the UK, would the hon. Gentleman be in favour of retaining the BBC news on Greenwich mean time or on summer time?

[Mr Gale]

I think that the BBC will do what it has continued to do for a very long time, and live in the past.

I was saying to the hon. Member for Midlothian (Mr Hamilton) that it is practicably possible to have different time zones, and that if the Scots, who have their own Parliament, genuinely choose, having consulted the people who elect them, to adopt a different time zone, there is practicably no reason why they should not do so. It works right across the United States and across Europe, and we have already established that Gibraltar is in a different time zone from the United Kingdom although it proudly flies the Union flag.

[Mr MacNeil]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Gale]

I am going to conclude now; a lot of other people want to speak. When the hon. Member for the Western Isles—I wish I could remember the proper name of his constituency; I did it the other day, but I cannot remember it now—rises to speak, I urge him to consider, instead of seeking to impose a rejection of change on the whole of the United Kingdom, the fact that there is a perfectly viable alternative. If he and those whom he represents, and those in the Scottish Parliament, chose to go down that alternative road, he might find that quite a lot of people on the Government Benches would be perfectly willing to support him.

10:47

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

I do not intend to say a great deal, but I want to address a couple of the issues from the perspective of someone who represents one of the most northerly constituencies in the UK. I must confess that I approached this issue with a very open mind. After 40 years, it is always worth looking at an issue again with fresh eyes in the light of changing times, and I have therefore listened very carefully to the lobbyists, spoken to the stakeholders and looked at the evidence. I live in the far north of Scotland and I represent people who will be disproportionately impacted by the proposed change, however, and I have to say that I remain decidedly ambivalent about the potential benefits and unpersuaded by some of the evidence that I have seen.

I have also been approached by numerous constituents —just ordinary citizens who are not part of any lobby group—who are worried about the impact of the proposals on their quality of life. They tell me how the measure could compromise their safety. One of my main concerns with the evidence that I have seen and heard is that an awful lot of it is simulated, as the right hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce) pointed out. It is speculative, and it is not based on empirical data. It does not take into account other relevant attendant factors that can influence this process, such as the weather. I have been slightly bemused this week to observe how a light dusting of snow in central London seems to have brought the metropolis to a standstill. However, many parts of the country are experiencing very severe weather at present, and I think it brings home to many of us just how dangerous it can be to travel in icy conditions.

The local authority in the area that I represent grits the roads during seven months of the year. Driving before dawn is dangerous, not because it is dark but because the roads are icy. In the dead of winter, there are many days on which the mercury is never going to rise above zero, but on most winter days, the temperature will rise after sunrise, and as the sun gets up, the roads become less hazardous. I have to confess that the thought of having to drive on icy roads does not fill me with relish. That concern is shared by many people who live and work in northern climates. It is not just road safety issues that are of concern. Hon. Members have mentioned the problem of kids standing around waiting for school buses in the cold and the dark. We have bitter, dreich, nasty winter mornings that are already bad. Taking the time back an hour further would make that even more unpleasant.

The other factor that has not been considered is that, when the experiment took place in the 1960s, road fatalities in the north of Scotland did, indeed, increase. That happened despite the fact that, during the same period, speed limits, drink-driving legislation and seat belts were introduced. Unless we believe that none of those measures had any impact on road safety, we have to take some of the evidence on road safety with a big pinch of salt. Early mornings are a hazardous time to be on the roads. We cannot just isolate the one issue of darkness and extrapolate from that without considering the wider context.

[Malcolm Bruce]

Does the hon. Lady agree that hon. Members who represent southern constituencies should realise that what she is describing are the conditions we currently experience, and that they will experience them if we have this experiment?

[Dr Whiteford]

I could not agree more with the right hon. Gentleman. He has experience, as I do, of getting up in the dark, going to work and school in the dark and coming home in the dark. The ontological reality that we live with is that there is a limited amount of daylight. As small child, I was very fond of a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson that begins:

“In winter I get up at night

And dress by yellow candle-light.

In summer, quite the other way,

I have to go to bed by day.”

I empathised with the child in the poem, who had to be carted off to bed when it was still time to be playing outside. As I get older, it is becoming very clear to me that getting up in what feels like the middle of the night in the far north is not pleasant and it is not good for our well-being, health or happiness. Such a measure will lead to danger and misery for people who live in the north.

[Rebecca Harris]

I am very sympathetic to the concerns of the hon. Lady and her constituents. As she will see, I have drafted my Bill carefully to ensure to that exactly those factors are taken into account, so that there will be no danger of any change taking place to the disbenefit of any part of the United Kingdom. I hope that she will look at the science of the road safety experts, who say that even in the shortest mid-winter days in the north of the country, there will be a saving. In parts of Scotland, children go to school in the dark already. At least this measure would mean that they came home in the light, during the lighter period of the day.

[Dr Whiteford]

I am afraid the reality is that there is a limited amount of daylight. Children are already dealing with the fact that there is half-light. The measure will not make any difference to that. The only difference is that we will have to get up even earlier. We can debate whether the prospect of separate time zones across the UK is realistic or not.

[Mr Ellwood]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Dr Whiteford]

Not just now because I am winding up.

We have to think very seriously about the logistics of having separate time zones. The reality is that we could all get up a bit later, and start schools and work at 10 o’clock. However, that would be very difficult for those people who work for UK-wide organisations and who have difficulty in changing the time of day when they do things. The benefits of the measure are rather untested, and are outweighed by the dangers of driving in hazardous conditions, which have not been properly considered. Some of the evidence we have heard demonstrates that the methodology is rather flawed and the evidence is incomplete. I ask hon. Members to think carefully before imposing the measure across the UK.

10:54

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) on introducing the Bill. She may have drawn accusations that she is a barbecue-obsessed southerner but, considering today’s temperature, that seems irrelevant. I thank the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) for his comments about the work of the Energy and Climate Change Committee, which has recently considered the issue. I am impressed to see a significant proportion of the members of the Environmental Audit Committee, on which I sit, present. It too appreciates the potential benefits of the measure.

The 10:10 Lighter Later campaign has certainly been very active. Little did I know that when I met a member of that campaign during the general election, I would be standing here in December debating the issue. I even managed to convince a number of my constituents to spend a significant proportion of their time phoning hon. Members yesterday to exhort them to stay for today’s debate. I thank all those people from my constituency who did so—I spoke to a good number of them yesterday afternoon. I particularly congratulate those who have struggled through the snow to be here today.

None of the individuals, businesses or organisations that are supporting this examination and analysis are supporting change for change’s sake. What we want is a cross-departmental analysis of the potential benefits of a new, updated trial, so that any evidence is based on modern statistics and current thinking and analysis, rather than on information from the late 1960s. Much has changed since the last trial—in particular, farming technology. I come from a reasonably rural constituency and have family links to the farming industry, so I know that that measure was obviously of concern. However, the agricultural community has rowed back from its earlier position. At worst, it is now neutral on the subject, and some members of the farming community are positive about the possibility of a new trial.

Importantly, as a member of the Environmental Audit Committee, I know that there are new considerations that were not uppermost in people’s minds in the ’60s and ’70s. I was pleased to hear the Committee’s Chairman, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley), make the point about the impact that the measure could have on CO₂ emissions. It has massive potential benefits for the UK’s carbon footprint and, indeed, for individual domestic energy bills. More than a 2% reduction in CO₂ emissions during winter is a significant improvement. I am sure that we in this House are all committed to meeting challenging environmental targets. That could be done, via this measure, at no cost.

I admit that Romsey and Southampton North is about as southern a constituency as there is, and I am convinced that we will have some interesting and enlightening contributions from some of the more northerly Members shortly. However, there are many options to consider: balancing the time change around the winter solstice; having a permanent change to British summer time, so that my constituents who remain concerned about the difficulties of having to change their clocks twice a year could avoid it; and the proposal advocated by Lighter Later, which would involve a move to GMT+1 and GMT+2. All those ideas are in the mix and are worthy of proper analysis.

If such a measure was good enough for a coalition Government during the second world war, it is good enough for a coalition Government to examine now.

10:57

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) on being successful in the ballot. I wish she had chosen something else but, nevertheless, she has perhaps chosen her specialist subject. As a result, some of us are here fielding or batting in the opposite direction.

I am happy once again to be debating the subject of changing the time when the clocks go back in the United Kingdom. I think this is the third time I have participated in such a debate since being elected in 2005. The matter seems to return to the House fairly regularly. As hon. Members may assume, I will not argue in favour of the change, which will have a disproportionate effect on my part of the world. That is not to say that I am resistant to change. I am happy for there to be a compromise. I would like the period of winter time to be changed from 21 weeks to perhaps 10 weeks. Rather than seven weeks before mid-winter and 14 weeks after mid-winter, there should be five weeks either side of mid-winter. That might be a compromise that we could live with.

Moving to central European time would be a mistake given our longitude. That fact is exacerbated by the latitude differences within the United Kingdom, which mean that the further north we travel, the shorter is the day in winter. There is a great argument for symmetry either side of the mid-winter day. I hope that we will try to change that. However, European directive 2000/84/EC seems to tie our hands to a time change on the last Sunday in October and the last Sunday in March. That directive seems to enshrine the asymmetry.

However, it is only a directive. Given the strength of feeling in this place about matters European, one would think that some Government Members, who are no longer in opposition, as they were when I last spoke about this, would realise that it is not a commandment, but a directive, and perhaps do something about it.

The Bill does not seek to move the daylight, as some would have us believe: in fact, it wants to move us, the people, into the night. I ask anybody watching, wherever in the UK they may be—I am sure that, as the hon. Member for Castle Point said, people will be riveted to the parliamentary channel—to imagine getting up an hour earlier today.

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Gentleman and I have sparred over this issue for a number of years. I think that he inadvertently misleads the House, because in Glasgow, for example, sunset today takes place just six minutes after it does here in London. The statistics for his own constituency suggest that schoolchildren are going to school in the dark and returning home in the dark. The clock change would allow at least one of those journeys to be made in the light. Were this Bill to go through, his adult constituents would benefit from 160 more hours a year after work and children would benefit from 84 hours of daylight after school. That is a useful statistic for his constituents to be aware of.

[Mr MacNeil]

If the hon. Gentleman’s argument is for one hour, why does he not extend that logic to two, three, four or eight hours? Perhaps we could have our daylight at 4 o’clock in the afternoon when we have all finished work so that we had more leisure time at the end of day. That would be the logical conclusion of his argument.

The crux of the matter is that people getting up an hour earlier face the darkness of the morning for another hour. As I make this argument for the third time, I sometimes feel that we are doing battle with the forces of darkness—I am looking directly across the Chamber at the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood). Some Members will imagine that I am participating in this debate merely to indulge in what is claimed to be the perennial Scottish ritual of opposing any changes to the clocks, but that is not true.

A similar idea was defeated in this House in 1970—this may help the hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr Gale) —when the then Member for the Western Isles, the late Donald Stewart, started his Commons speaking career by opposing this very argument 40 years and a day ago, on 2 December 1970, when I was a mere babe in arms of five months. I was reminded of it by one of the Doorkeepers, Mr Robin Fell from the Serjeant at Arms office. He was working in the Commons at the time, and such is his impressive institutional memory that he remembered the debate. Donald Stewart said:

“Public opinion polls would indicate that there is a case for abolishing British Standard Time.”

He went on to say:

“Central European Time is really what we are discussing. It has little relevance to England and none at all to Scotland. It is pleasant to know that several hon. Members from English constituencies, some of them in the south, have indicated to me that they intend to vote for the abolition of British Standard Time.”—[Official Report, 2 December 1970; Vol. 807, c. 1346.]

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

I hope that, as a Conservative and Unionist, I will not do the hon. Gentleman’s credibility any damage if I agree with that point. Some Members from southern constituencies, although they may be not completely against changing the clocks, do at least have significant concerns about it.

[Mr MacNeil]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. That is borne out in my next point. The result of the Division on 2 December 1970 was 366 to 81. The hon. Members for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) and for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell) were here, and they voted to abolish British standard time, so I imagine that today they would be on my side of the argument. I would have had 366 Members on my side and there would have been 81 on the other side. I cannot see 81 in front of me today, but I think that those who are most vexed by this proposal are here.

Dawn happens when dawn happens. Supporters of the Bill have painted a picture—

[Mr Reid]

I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman referred to the earlier debate. The fact is that we have had an experiment in this country, and we do not need another one. From reading the Hansard record of that debate, it is obvious that members of the public were writing in their droves to their MPs demanding that this awful experiment be stopped. The experiment failed, and we should move on.

[Mr MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. There are of course the interested parties—the busybodies, perhaps—but most people feel that this is just Westminster going through its contortions yet again. This is the third time that this has come before the House in five years, and people feel that it is not as serious as it might seem, or not as serious as it could be if the mistake is made.

The experiment has happened not only here but in Portugal, in the 1990s. Portugal’s dawn is about the same time as dawn here. Its daylight hours would have been longer, but people changed back, I presume because of the disbenefits in the morning. The experiment has happened not once, but twice, and people have changed back both times.

[Albert Owen]

I am reluctant to go with the Portuguese example, but it happened because Portugal had extra benefits already, so that is not a strong argument. I do not think we should be discussing Portugal today, because the only thing that it has in common with England is that both lost the FIFA world cup bid. The hon. Gentleman said that he was happy to compromise and to move forward. All that this Bill is asking for is an analysis of cost benefits and a trial period. Surely, in the spirit of compromise that he mentions, he should support this measure.

[Mr MacNeil]

The trial period is the dangerous part. A trial period of three years is quite a large percentage of somebody’s life. I would be happier if something could be done about the EU directive. Rather than plunge people in Scotland into misery, we could turn the other way, look south-east towards Belgium—towards Brussels and the EU—and move forward with greater security, but instead we will be shoehorned into this by interests in the south of England aligning with interests in the EU and plunging Scotland into darkness.

[Mr Ellwood]

rose—

[Mr MacNeil]

The forces of darkness are back again.

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Gentleman says that he is representing his seat and Scotland by claiming that we are going to plunge them into misery. How does he square that with the three recent polls in Scotland in which people said they favoured this move, and with the fact that the farmers, who were the big opponents of this change, have now decided to embrace it because in many cases they have moved into the world of tourism?

[Mr MacNeil]

I draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to an Ipsos MORI poll on changing the clocks, which showed that 19% of people in Scotland were in favour and 28% of people in London were in favour. The average throughout the UK was 25%, so the polling evidence is not as conclusive as he suggests.

[Mr David Hamilton]

Is not the fact that very few central Scotland MPs, and no MPs from the borders, are here an indication that this is not the major issue in Scotland that the hon. Gentleman makes it out to be? I have to say that he does not speak for Scotland.

[Mr MacNeil]

In all areas and at all times there is a difference of opinion. The reason many of them are not here is probably that they and their constituents do not think that this change will really happen—that it is just Westminster going through a debate. If constituents did think it was going to happen, we might indeed have 366 Members here to debate against 81. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman agrees that that is possible.

In 1968, the image that was often painted was one of slimmer people, the elderly feeling safer, more tourists, more money in our pockets and more lives being saved during the winter. Those arguments have not changed since the ’60s.

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that something significant has changed since 1968, which is that we face catastrophic climate change and an energy crisis? This measure has the potential to take the equivalent of 172,000 cars off the roads. Does he not think that that alone merits at least a trial?

[Mr MacNeil]

A number of things have indeed changed since the 1970s; of course, I have aged 40 years. The hon. Lady is incorrect in the assumptions that underlie her intervention. I will try to come to those matters later; if I do not, I will be happy to take another intervention.

The report to Cabinet spoke of a reduction in Scottish resistance to the idea, as we heard again today, save in the rural areas, which I come from, of course—the Outer Hebrides—but two and a half years later, on 2 December 1970, it was all change. When people had been through the experiment, in its third winter, it was resoundingly defeated in the Commons—let me reiterate—by 366 to 81.

Portugal, as we have mentioned, has dawn around the same time as us. Regardless of what the clock might say, the sun rises in Portugal at around the same time as it does in London—when I say us, I mean this House. Portugal changed back after its experiment in the 1990s, and the 1968 arguments seem to be based on today’s model of simulated modelling and supposition. When we have empirical examples, I feel that the arguments are not borne out at all.

That was the past and now we have a raft of statistics to add to this version of the time change argument. However, in my office we have taken some time to look at the statistics and we have compiled a number of arguments that apply to our situation. First, the arguments about potential increases to the tourism sector are based on several assumptions, most importantly that people here and abroad will choose to spend their disposable income on holidaying in the UK. Surely a bigger factor is temperature. After all, it is winter. If the argument about tourist numbers is so strong, why not move the clocks two, three or four hours, as I have said? Why not have dawn at 5 o’clock?

[Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)]

On the point about people wanting to barbecue, for example, at half 11 at night, it is quite possible to do that on the north coast in Northern Ireland. Not many people do, generally, because it is quite chilly at that time of night.

[Albert Owen]

Put a cardy on.

[Mr MacNeil]

Once again, we have the voice of experience versus the voice of hope. Experience often triumphs over hope, I have to say. I worry that hon. Members who mention carbon savings in one breath are talking in the next breath about having a barbecue late at night. I wonder whether we have any data on the impact of the increased number of barbecues in Castle Point—or, indeed, in Ynys Môn.

The sleight of hand is that we are not moving the dawn about. We are actually moving ourselves by changing the clocks. Clocks, which started by measuring time, end up governing lives, and we are moving ourselves into the night. Such was the misery in the third winter that this House voted to end it with 366 votes. I would like to point out—I am looking at a couple of other highland Members—that even with the best will in the world we do not have 366 Members of Parliament from the Scottish highlands. Indeed, we do not have 366 Members of Parliament from the whole of Scotland. We therefore must conclude that the decision was made not on a Scottish basis, but on the basis of experience—and, I would say, grim experience—throughout the United Kingdom.

I have a letter here, and some people might think that it has come from Callanish in Lewis, from Castlebay in Barra, from Tobermory, from Isla or just from somewhere else in Scotland, but—no—it comes from Chester. It says,

“Dear Angus MacNeil,

I listened to you on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Costing the Earth’ on Wednesday.

Please do all you can to defeat the moves to bring in year round summer time. In 1968-71 I was a schoolchild and we detested it”—

the word “detested” is underlined—

“It was pitch black when going to school. (You may quote me on this detestation).”

I hope, Mr Roger Croston, that I have done you justice in doing that—[Interruption.] I was expecting an intervention. Any sound I hear, I expect an intervention.

On sporting issues, the same tourism study concluded that more people would go out if it was lighter later, but it also showed that the number of people participating in athletics was fairly constant during the year. The athletics events in which numbers fell were those that took place outside, such as sailing, which is also very temperature dependent.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that although people who participate in competitive sport are probably fairly consistent in their participation, it is those with the “jumpers for goalposts” mentality—the people who take part in spontaneous sport—who will greatly benefit from lighter evenings?

[Mr MacNeil]

I am tempted to say that perhaps people should get up an hour earlier if they are that motivated. Let us assume for a second that the hon. Gentleman has an argument and that he is right—why not go for the compromise of five weeks either side? Without inconveniencing people in Scotland and perhaps in other areas, such as Chester, we could reduce the “winter” period by 10 weeks. That would help us on to a more secure stepping stone than the present suggestion.

[Malcolm Bruce]

Although I would support that move, does the hon. Gentleman not realise that one reason it would be resisted by other members of the European Union is that France, Spain and the Benelux countries are in the wrong time zone and could not tolerate the dark mornings being extended further back?

[Mr MacNeil]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He makes a point that I perhaps have not fully thought about, but it is worth putting on the record.

I have a serious problem with the proposition that lighter evenings will automatically increase the tourism money coming in to the various isles and decrease obesity—that is, that if it is lighter outside, people might want to get up and go out and exercise. There are various other reasons for doing that, however.

On the environmental aspects of changing the clocks, I have a problem with the arguments that changing the clocks will foster a decrease in energy use. We have not been able to find any domestic studies that use empirical data, but we have found studies from the United States that recorded the use of energy during daylight saving time. In 2008, a study was conducted in the state of Indiana. Indiana has 6.4 million inhabitants and, geographically, it is probably approximately the same size as the UK. Its GDP is comparable with that of this country. Indiana is interesting for this argument because certain counties were able to use daylight saving time whereas others were not.

The study found that household costs and energy consumption increased owing to people heating their homes in the colder winter mornings, doubtless wanting to rise to a warmer home to counter the feeling of darkness and gloom outside. The empirical data from Indiana say something different from the data we are hearing.

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman cites many trials and much evidence in his speech, and he clearly feels passionate about this. By not voting for this Bill, however, is he not denying the one thing that really matters, which is for this provision to be tested in the United Kingdom for the people of the United Kingdom?

[Mr MacNeil]

If we could conduct a trial without going through the inevitable misery and changing back, I would agree. I am tempted to suggest that the hon. Gentleman conduct his own personal trial this winter and get up an hour earlier. He could come back to me in the spring and tell me how the experience went. I could see him in the autumn again and see whether he wanted to go through the trial once more. I wager that he would not, but I shall leave that suggestion as it is.

Darker mornings will mean sunrise at 10 am for many people. Indeed, London’s sunrise will be at a quarter to 9. Let us consider some of the sunrise times in the UK this morning, starting in Scotland. In Aberdeen, sunrise was 8.26 am, with a length of day of seven hours and five minutes. In Edinburgh, it was 8.22 am, with a length of day of seven hours and 20 minutes. In London, it was 7.46 am, with a length of day of eight hours and seven minutes—almost an hour more daylight than in Aberdeen, due to the effect of latitude. That would leave London with sunrise at a quarter to 9. Let me draw attention to the west coast of Scotland. Stornoway had sunrise at 10 to 9 today, which would of course become 10 to 10. Tobermory, which some people might think is quite close to Stornoway, has a difference of 13 minutes in its sunrise, which is 13 minutes earlier, and sunset is nine minutes later.

[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman cited some times, but how long does that situation last in those places?

[Mr MacNeil]

The hon. Lady leads me nicely on to the next part of my speech. In this, I am not only a Scottish nationalist—I feel the mantle of English nationalism, too. I care for the good people of England and I care that for two months of the year, in the area north of Manchester, they would not see sunrise before 9 o’clock in the morning. Somebody has to speak up for the good people of England and I am happy to do that, come what may.

[Sir Alan Beith]

I should hate to leave the hon. Gentleman with that burden unaided. Do his constituents, like mine, have the experience of seeing many children waiting at the roadside for school transport? Some are dropped by taxis from more remote locations and left to wait for the school bus. One of people’s real concerns is that if the clocks were changed, that would have to be done in the dark on many more occasions.

[Mr MacNeil]

The right hon. Gentleman has made a very good point. That is also one of my concerns, but I should like to see a compromise. I wish that others would meet me halfway, rather than railroading us into a situation that we would not enjoy.

Let me return to the issue of Indiana for a moment. The Indiana experiment showed that people spent an additional £5.5 million on energy—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman mentioned a compromise. He has been speaking for quite a long time, and he has the right to do so, but many other Members wish to speak as well, and I know that he wishes to allow them to do so.

[Mr MacNeil]

One thing that I am certainly not trying to do, Mr Deputy Speaker, is talk the Bill out. That is not a parliamentary tactic of which I approve. However, some may think my speech long-winded, and I apologise for that. At your instigation, Mr Deputy Speaker, I shall try to proceed a wee bit more quickly.

Safety is an important aspect of this issue, but data relating to the saving of lives are often based on projection. As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford), changes were made in the 1960s. We know that the most dangerous hours of the day are 8 am and 3 pm. The Bill would send 8 am further back into the darkness, although 3 pm would probably not be affected, as it is always light at that time.

[Mr Bradshaw]

Is it not time that we scotched the myth about the rate of road accidents in Scotland during the experiment? Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the overall reduction in the number of fatalities and serious injuries was 11% in England and Wales and 17% in Scotland—a significantly higher proportion? A very small increase in the north of Scotland was massively outweighed by the overall decrease in the mornings throughout Scotland.

[Mr MacNeil]

As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan—the new Madame Ecosse—the statistic was greatly affected by the introduction of seat belts, speed limits and drink-driving laws. Let us, however, consider the difference between accident rates in Berlin and Paris, which are in the same time zone although, as one is further west, it presumably has lighter evenings. The accident rates in Paris and Berlin are 31.8 and 14 per million of population respectively, which shows that there are not necessarily fewer accidents where there are lighter evenings. When we compare the rate in Paris with that in London—[Interruption.] Members may not like it, but these are the data. The accident rate in Paris, with its lighter evenings, is 31.8 per million, whereas in London it is 23.9 per million. The evidence is certainly not conclusive; it should be balanced with other evidence.

[Rebecca Harris]

When it comes to accident statistics, the only evidence that matters is the differential between what happens in the darker mornings and the lighter afternoons. All the hon. Gentleman’s arguments point in one direction: the Government should conduct a proper cost-benefit analysis. Every point that he has made demonstrates that there are genuine concerns in parts of the country, and that is precisely why we should put the argument to bed once and for all—unless, as I suspect, the hon. Gentleman rather welcomes this annual discussion.

[Mr MacNeil]

I have to say that I would much rather be in the outer Hebrides than in London on this Friday morning.

[Mr Reid]

rose—[Laughter.]

[Mr MacNeil]

I have probably just missed a decent quip in the Chamber, but I am happy to give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Reid]

I am sorry to keep the hon. Gentleman away from the flight home to Barra, but he is right about the accident statistics. The experiment lasted from 1968 until 1971. I have the official Department for Transport figures relating to deaths on the roads in Great Britain. There was indeed a substantial fall between 1967 and 1968, but, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out, that was due to the introduction of the breathalyser. If the clock change had been responsible for a reduction in the number of deaths, there would have been substantial increases after the experiment finished, but that did not happen.

[Mr MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman has neatly completed a picture of which we had probably been given only half. The other half is very interesting.

I agree with the hon. Member for Castle Point about the need for an analysis. I have given facts relating to Paris, Berlin and London. However, I do not want any analysis that would involve changing our clocks and making us undergo three years of misery before the clocks were inevitably changed back again. It seems that once the memory of 40 years ago has dimmed, a new generation must learn painfully and slowly over three miserable winters that this is the wrong thing to do.

I am trying to proceed with my speech reasonably quickly, Mr Deputy Speaker.

According to a 2005 survey by Ipsos MORI, Scots are in favour of lighter evenings. That is true: we are in favour of lighter evenings. However, only 19% of Scots who were polled want the clocks to move back permanently. Of course, some people might be in favour of Christmas every week, but they realise that that cannot happen. Similarly, we might want lighter evenings, but we know that the earth tilts. We know that we will have cold and frost.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

I have been enjoying the hon. Gentleman’s speech enormously. I think that he has identified the nub of the problem, which is simply that there is not enough daylight in the winter, and there is remarkably little that Government—or even a sovereign Parliament—can do about it.

[Mr MacNeil]

I welcome that sensible point from a new Member whom I admire enormously. I want to put on record the fact that I have really enjoyed his contributions. I think that I detected some agitation among Labour Members when I paid the hon. Gentleman that compliment! As I was saying, people might be in favour of x, y or z, but they know exactly how things pan out in reality.

The National Farmers Union of Scotland has discussed the issue. Incidentally, when Donald Stewart spoke about the issue, he said that he presumed “NFU” to refer to the National Farmers Union of England and Wales—which, for some reason, does not brand itself properly—rather than the National Farmers Union of Scotland. Anyway, if we are to believe newspaper reports, it seems that every farmer in Scotland is in favour of change. One newspaper stated:

“Scott Walker, NFU Scotland policy director, said today that the organisation had softened its stance towards the move, which would see clocks shunted forward by an hour throughout the year while retaining the changing of clocks forward in March and back in October.

‘If people can put a good argument forward to us as to why there should be change, we’re not going to be the ones who stand in the way of that change, if it’s for everyone else’s benefit’”.

That is not a resounding “yes” to change; it is only a “yes” to listening. I, too, am willing to listen, but I ask those on the other side not to indulge in a kamikaze leap—

[Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr MacNeil]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not going to indulge in a kamikaze leap.

[Ben Gummer]

The hon. Gentleman is manfully presenting arguments against what seem to be manifestly sensible reasons for moving the times of day. May I put to him an argument that has not been put so far? The unofficial opposition to the Bill appears to have been mobilised by Mr Peter Hitchens. Is that not the clincher in favour of a successful passage for the Bill, or does the hon. Gentleman wish to find himself in alliance with Mr Hitchens?

[Mr MacNeil]

I am not very familiar with Mr Peter Hitchens. I believe that he writes in The Times or the Daily Express, or perhaps the Daily Mail. I have heard that Mr Peter Hitchens is involved, but I have had no contact with Mr Peter Hitchens, either positive or negative. Perhaps the word “kamikaze” could be attached to Mr Peter Hitchens; I have no idea. However, if Mr Peter Hitchens is on my side, I welcome that. What an eminently sensible man Mr Peter Hitchens must be. [Interruption.] I have just been told by my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan that I did not want to say that. Hansard, strike it from the record! [Laughter.] It seems that Mr Peter Hitchens has been a torpedo to my argument, whoever he is.

I have raised all those issues in order to challenge data that have been used to suggest that opposition to this idea has all but evaporated. It has not evaporated. Eminently sensible members of all parties—and, it would seem, eminently sensible scribes in certain newspapers—are backing the argument against this move.

The Bill offers an even-handed new approach, save one part. It has much merit therefore, and the hon. Member for Castle Point has conducted herself very well in making her arguments, and I have enjoyed engaging in discussion with her. Changing the clocks will definitely advantage the south of England, while sunrise in Manchester and areas north of there will be after 9 o’clock for two months of the year. I was therefore surprised to note that there is no geographical requirement regarding the membership of the commission that will implement the change in the clocks. I hope—indeed, I am sure—the Bill will not pass, but under its provisions the commission’s membership would be selected by the Business Secretary, and we could have a commission comprising 12 people from London, Dover or Blackpool, for instance.

There is also no provision in respect of the Scottish Government or Parliament, and I was very pleased to hear the hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr Gale) arguing for more powers for the Scottish Parliament. I say to him, “Join me, brother, and let us have all powers pertaining to Scotland moved from here to Holyrood”, which is the rightful place and the most democratic forum in which to discuss Scottish matters. The hon. Gentleman might be coming my way a little bit. I welcome that and hope that he will move further in my direction.

[Mr Gale]

I do not want to go too far off-piste, but I happen to be in favour of four national Parliaments and a United Kingdom Senate. The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) has not yet mentioned whether this matter has been discussed in the Scottish Parliament, and whether the issue of time zones has been considered.

[Mr MacNeil]

I understand that it has not been debated in the Scottish Parliament, because they think this is one of the normal Westminster convulsions that happen from time to time. I am not sure whether people there are taking what is happening in Westminster particularly seriously. That might surprise people in Westminster of course, but for many people Westminster is not the most serious Parliament in Scotland. There is another, which deals with health, education and many other matters: the Scottish Parliament.

There is no provision to ensure that the Government or Parliament of Scotland—or, indeed, the Governments of Wales or Northern Ireland—are asked to agree, or are even consulted, on these potential moves, which would make Scottish mornings colder and more dangerous, as my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan has described very well.

I realise that I have been speaking for about half an hour. I am not here just to rant against the data. I have tried to provide reasoned argument. I am not here to talk the Bill out either; I would not do that. I am not here for purely selfish Hebridean reasons. I am here for Scottish reasons, and for English reasons as well. I understand more than most the effect of darker mornings. As the right hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce) said, when this Bill is foisted on the rest of the UK, other people will understand that too. I would propose changing the clocks for five weeks either side of the middle of winter, thereby maximising the light in the darkest part of the year.

[Mr David Hamilton]

I understand fully that the hon. Gentleman is making these arguments because of where he comes from. If I came from that constituency I might make the same arguments. However, if the Scottish Parliament were to debate the matter and the outcome of the vote was that we should keep things as they are, would he want the Scottish Parliament to put in place separate time zones in the UK?

[Mr MacNeil]

I feel the hon. Gentleman is coming on to good territory in that he seems to want to give more powers to the Scottish Parliament. It is a welcome move: come with me, brother, we are heading in the right direction.

The situation is confusing. Why is there this asymmetrical period of winter change of seven weeks before mid-winter and 14 weeks after? I have never received a reasonable explanation for that. If we could have one, or if we could deal with the European directive I mentioned earlier, we might be able to make some progress.

I have enjoyed making this contribution, and the numerous interventions.

11:33

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil), and I will address some of the points that he made later.

The principal argument for considering changing the clocks is simple: it is about how we can best align our lives to maximise the benefits of daylight. The idea is not new, of course, but the circumstances in which we are debating the matter are new. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) on selecting this subject for her private Member’s Bill and on outlining how the pace of change in our modern busy world makes things different from when the subject was last considered. The second key point is that there is new evidence to support the clock change. Thirdly, the public are more educated in their views than ever before, and that is the case across the country, from Bournemouth all the way up to the constituency that the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken represents. That is reflected in the diverse range of constituencies represented by the Members who are attending this debate. The hon. Gentleman said there were an awful lot of voices against this move in Scotland. I am sorry his hon. Friends were not able to find the time to join him and present themselves and their arguments today.

I first came across this issue when I was shadow tourism Minister. I looked at it without prejudice or passion, and it became clear that it is very important for the tourism industry—I say that just as the hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster) departs. The Tourism Alliance has done a lot of work on this. However, I stepped away from the specific issue of tourism and thought about how it might benefit or damage the whole of the country.

It is clear that there would be huge benefits in many corners of our lives. I studied the change’s potential impacts on British society as a whole and why the last experiment was unsuccessful. It is clear that Britain is in a different place today. Our lifestyles, technologies, industries and priorities have fundamentally changed since the last experiment. Most people rise after sunrise and stay awake long after sunset, wasting one of the few things in life that are free: daylight. Essentially, this subject is about how we align our lives with the movement of the sun across the heavens.

[Mr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

I believe my hon. Friend’s constituency contains a community of orthodox Jewish people, as does mine in Hendon. Would he like to speak about how the proposed changes would affect them, particularly in the winter, but also in the summer when their days of prayer are dictated and determined by sunrise and sunset?

[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. There are many groups, such as the one he has just mentioned, who have concerns in respect of various aspects of life, and those matters need to be weighed up in deciding on the bigger picture of whether this change is worth making. The whole purpose of having this debate and allowing the discussion to progress and the Government to take an interest, is to balance out the various arguments and see whether the change is in the interests of Britain as a whole.

The idea is not new. It is not only various hon. Members of the past who have brought it forward. The Romans adapted their way of life to when the sun was in the sky, using water clocks with various weights to make sure they were up when the sun rose and went to bed when it set. When Benjamin Franklin was ambassador to Paris, he commented on the fact that most Parisians did not get up until midday. He then realised—this is a capitalist viewpoint—that more revenue could be made by putting extra taxes on candles, because they were needed in the evening. He was also encouraging people to take advantage of the free sunlight, however, and he came up with the saying, “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”

The advent of our railway system moved us on from local timings in towns and villages, as we now had to synchronise time across the entire country. This was measured at the Greenwich observatory, and gave rise to the now familiar Greenwich mean time. Greenwich was referenced as zero degrees longitude and 24 time zones were created around the globe, each covering exactly 50 degrees longitude, but as has been pointed out, not everybody adheres to that. Spain is in alignment with the UK, but it chooses to operate on continental time.

[Joseph Johnson (Orpington) (Con)]

I hope my hon. Friend will pay tribute in his brief history of the daylight savings movement to Mr William Willett of my constituency of Orpington, who was among the very first to bring this idea to the centre of national debate. Back in 1907, the sight of drawn blinds in the homes of Petts Wood, a ward in my constituency, where he saw residents sleeping as the town basked in sunlight, persuaded him to write his highly influential pamphlet, “The Waste of Daylight”, in which he argued forcefully for the changes that were introduced just a few weeks after his death in 1915, during the first world war. I hope my hon. Friend will commend his hard work in bringing this debate into our national life.

[Mr Ellwood]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for paying tribute to his former constituent. It is also worth mentioning Robert Pearce, MP, who was a friend of Mr Willett, and who then took this idea on. Mr Willett was a keen golfer and he was horrified that the golf courses he used closed down when it got dark. He wanted them to stay open. That was the initial thought that put the idea into his head of taking advantage, from a leisure perspective, of the evening sunlight. So we should thank Robert Pearce for first bringing this matter to the attention of the House.

I wish to bury some of the myths and some of the headlines that we see in some of the press. We are not putting anywhere into the dark; we are not getting rid of any sunshine in any form. We are transferring light from one part of the day to another—from the morning to the evening. We are saying that, on balance, it is more useful to have that light in the evening than in the morning. Some extreme cases have been mentioned, but for much of the year—nine months of the year—we sleep through this asset. When we awake the sun has been out for an hour or more. If we suppose that an average working day ends at 5.30 pm, a clock change would result in about 300 extra hours of daylight a year in London. The figure for Glasgow would be 175 hours and the one for Shetland, at the very north of the UK, would be 160 hours. That change would be life-changing and would have an impact on everybody. It is useful to have that extra daylight at the end of the evening to do whatever one wants to do.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

The crucial thing is: will we save lives by changing the hours at which daylight starts and daylight ends? We should check that and the only way we can do so is to give this a trial, 40 years on from the previous one. If we save one life by changing our clocks, it is worth it.

[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend makes one of the most powerful points for this argument, and it cannot be refuted by any Member or any person in any part of the country. Lives will be saved, as they have been proven to have been saved, through the clock change. Let me further the argument on how our lives will change. Schoolchildren would also benefit if we transferred that hour of light from the morning to the afternoon. In London, they would benefit from 233 hours of available extra daylight between 4.30 pm and either sunset or bedtime taken at 8.30 pm. That is 233 hours when activity could take place, after-school events could happen and, as my hon. Friend just mentioned, people could travel far more safely than they are able to do when it is dark.

Those arguments are also why Help the Aged says that it wants this change. At the moment, darkness acts as a guillotine on when the elderly are out; as soon as it gets dark, they lock the doors and close up shop. They are denied the opportunity to spend time in the town centre doing recreational activities or working in the garden—darkness comes and that is it.

[Mr Reid]

We had an experiment in the 1960s and there was no clear outcome in the studies of the road accident statistics. The Home Secretary of the day, Reginald Maudling, said:

“The figures are not clear enough to base a decision upon.” —[Official Report, 2 December 1970; Vol. 807, c. 1335.]

So we have had the experiment and no clear figures emerged, because of other factors, such as breathalysers, seat belts and so on. Another experiment would simply result in the same unclear figure.

[Mr Ellwood]

Let us just focus on that debate for a moment. Reginald Maudling did make those comments, but he also read out some statistics that showed that the number of deaths and injuries decreased during the period of the trial. What actually happened, as has been confirmed by colleagues who are now in another place, is that the farming industry—that powerful lobby—pressurised many Conservative MPs by saying, “If you want those precious poster sites in our fields for the general election, you must vote against this.” That is one of the reasons why many chose to follow their heart rather than their head and said, “ We should oppose this motion.” The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point, which is why we are calling for more information. We are encouraging the Government to examine the matter more closely, leading up to a trial.

[Mr MacNeil]

I am intrigued by that last contribution. Has the hon. Gentleman uncovered corruption in the Conservative party 40 years ago?

[Mr Ellwood]

I think I will gloss over that and move straight on to some of the other areas that have been mentioned.

The roads issue is important. There were 1,120 fewer deaths and injuries during that trial period. That is an important piece of evidence. I say to the hon. Gentleman that it is also important to Scotland, because there is a 27% higher risk of an accident in Scotland; more people walk than use cars and so on, so there is a greater likelihood of people being in danger, particularly children. As I said in an intervention, the Cambridge study said that had the experiment continued, more than 3,500 people who died during that period would be alive today.

[Dr Whiteford]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that he is simply displacing the problem from one end of the day to the other? Children are affected not only by light and dark, but by hot and cold. We have to examine the whole aspect of the climate, not just one isolated bit of it.

[Mr Ellwood]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on the method and the style with which she is putting her arguments forward. It is very important that we have a full debate on these matters. When children go to school in the morning the people using the roads are normally going to a destination with which they are familiar; they are either going to work or to school, and they have used these roads before. So even when they are doing so in the dark, they are making a safer journey than those they make in the afternoons and evenings, when our world gets far busier and far more complex. That is when the accidents happen. The hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long) shakes her head, but she cannot refute the current statistics, which show that three times as many accidents happen in the evening rush hour as in the morning rush hour. That is a powerful argument.

[Naomi Long]

I wrote to Translink, the main public transport provider in Northern Ireland, in relation to this debate and it took the contrary view. Translink said that if it were darker in the mornings, when the rush hour is much more concentrated in Northern Ireland, that could lead to more accidents than if it were darker in the afternoon, when the rush hour is more staggered. The hon. Gentleman can talk about his evidence, but other professionals in the field see things slightly differently.

[Mr Ellwood]

I looked carefully at the statistics for Northern Ireland, because it is important to include all parts of the United Kingdom, but I am afraid that I did not recognise those statistics that the hon. Lady cited. I would be happy to speak to her about them after this debate. It is important that we get these issues right. A lot of statistics have been thrown around today and were the Government to push this proposal forward, it would be important for them to carry out their own study and present that to Parliament.

A reduction in crime has also been mentioned in relation to this proposal. The Home Office British crime survey has indicated that a clock change would lead to a 3% reduction in vandalism and petty theft. The right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) raised the health and well-being issue, and people are happier and more energetic in the longer and brighter days. Conversely, our mood and spirit declines, and sickness rates increase, during the shorter, duller days. On average, we enjoy about four hours’ spare time a day—that is time when we are not working, travelling to work or sleeping—yet three of those hours are experienced after sunset. That suggests that we are not aligning our lives properly. There is also a 60% increase in the level of television watching when it gets dark, so there is strong evidence to support a clock change. I can see that you are looking at me, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I just wish to touch on some other issues.

[Mr Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Ellwood]

I will not give way for now and I shall make some more progress, because Mr Deputy Speaker is giving me that look. Obesity—this has nothing to do with looking back at Mr Deputy Speaker—is an issue with which we need to be concerned in the UK. About 25% of the nation are now clinically obese, which is costing the NHS about £2.3 billion a year. Some 50% of the population in Scotland are predicted to be obese by 2050 unless something changes, such as our providing a greater period in which outdoor activities can take place after school and after work.

The tourism argument has been well made, but I just put on the record the fact that I support the call by the Tourism Alliance for a clock change. The arguments about CO₂ emissions have also been put forward; in those terms, the clock change would result in the equivalent of more than 200,000 cars being taken off our roads. That is a major issue and I am pleased that the concept behind the Bill is receiving the support of the Chairman of the Environmental Audit Committee.

[Mr Knight]

Has my hon. Friend also seen the report by Cambridge university that concludes that home energy consumption would also decrease by about 2% as a result of this change?

[Mr Ellwood]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point, which is is worth expanding on. All fuel bills would go down by about 5%, and as fuel poverty is a concern, that is a relevant issue. We need to recognise that we are an importer of electricity. When there is a spike in demand, either we have to buy it in from places such as France or our easy-to-start-up coal-fired power stations come on line. They are dirty and they increase our carbon dioxide emissions. By reducing our net requirement by about 2.2%, we would remove the need to resort to those nasty, dirty coal-fired power stations.

[Malcolm Bruce]

The hon. Gentleman is quoting evidence very convincingly, so I shall quote some evidence:

“National Grid has also recognised that if the UK is on the same time as France, a loss of capacity or severe weather”

would push up energy prices here because we would be competing with France for our needs at the same time.

[Mr Ellwood]

The right hon. Gentleman’s point is now on the record.

We need to ensure that we do not resort to using coal-fired power stations, and that aim can be achieved through the clock change.

[Ben Gummer]

The right hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce) has just raised an important point about capacity, but that is entirely to do with generating capacity—an inheritance from the previous Government, I am afraid—and nothing to do with daylight saving time.

[Mr Ellwood]

I am grateful for that clarification.

A time change would bring huge benefits for business and overseas trade. As part of my work as the shadow Tourism Minister I spent some time in Scotland and it was interesting to meet Scottish business people, who were very keen to have an alignment of timing. Currently, 62% of our exports and 50% of imports are within Europe. When we go to work, the Europeans have already been at work for an hour, we break for lunch at different times so two hours are lost there and then we lose another hour in the evening. Four hours a day are lost because of the failure to align our times.

One might say that that is where the idea of Berlin time came from. Let me say a word about Mr Peter Hitchens.

[Mr Nuttall]

This might already have been mentioned, but is it not more accurate to refer to it as Gibraltar time?

[Mr Ellwood]

It is, but that point has been made already.

[Mr Foster]

I apologise because there are those who will get hung up on the European issue, but would not a time change also benefit our trade with other countries, not least the emerging countries, China and India?

[Mr Ellwood]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. He has been a passionate supporter of a clock change for some time.

But let us get back to Peter Hitchens. He is one of the few voices that are against the daylight saving, but I believe that he now acts as a drag anchor against that great British newspaper the Sunday mail—[Interruption.] —I am sorry; The Mail on Sunday. He is anti-change; he is anti-technology, so he abhors the idea of moving the clocks. That is slightly odd. Because he does not like inventions and technology, one would have thought that using the light bulb less might appeal to him, but he does not put that argument forward. He would rather put forward a wartime rhetoric with references to Berlin time to foster prejudice against the Bill.

“Why Berlin time?” it has been asked. “Why not Gibraltar time, Madrid time, Paris time or Rome time?” Clearly, those descriptions would not conjure up the same worrying image as the UK crumbling to the mighty powers of Berlin after the sacrifices that we made in two world wars. I say to him, “Peter, you are potty. Clearly, you are a very, very angry man and stuck in the past. You are a cross between Alf Garnett and Victor Meldrew but without the jokes.” He is a restless regressive: the King Canute of politics, fighting the tide of change. He will never lose sight of the past because he has chosen to walk backwards into the future. This is nothing to do with Berlin or wartime images. The only connection with the war is the fact that we first adopted a time change during the war because it was useful. [Hon. Members: “Churchill time!”] Yes, that is what we will call it—not Berlin time but Churchill time!

To summarise, moving the clocks forward would provide the entire country with about 200 hours of extra daylight in the evenings—after a normal working day for adults and after the end of school for children. That would change our lives. It is hard to imagine a more simple, cost-effective piece of legislation that would more dramatically change our way of life for the better. Sunshine brightens our day, our lives and our spirits; it makes our world happier. We should utilise this valuable resource to coincide with the period of the day in which our modern world is at its busiest and most dangerous. Carpe diem, Mr Deputy Speaker; let us seize the day.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

There are many speakers, so a little brevity will be helpful.

11:49

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) on proposing the Bill and refusing to be discouraged by the failure of previous attempts in the House to introduce daylight saving time. I am extremely glad that she has proposed the Bill, because the urgency of the problems of climate change and fuel poverty means that the arguments for bringing the nation’s clocks into closer alignment with the hours of daylight are stronger than ever. Moving our clocks forward by an extra hour throughout the year would bring a range of benefits, as we have heard, but I would like to draw particular attention, again, to the substantial reductions in energy consumption and carbon emissions that would result from the simple and effective measures in the Bill.

Daylight saving time would cut consumption, particularly of domestic fuel, in a number of ways. First, it would lower the demand for electricity for lighting, Secondly, it would smooth out fluctuations in demand, particularly in the two daily peaks in the morning and in the afternoon, which reduce the efficiency of power generation. Thirdly, because there would be higher temperatures during the evening period of peak demand in the colder months of the year, there would be a lower demand for domestic heating.

[Mr MacNeil]

The hon. Lady is, as we would expect, making an argument based on the effect of a time change on carbon emissions. If evidence was to appear—empirical evidence rather than projections—from Indiana, for example, that it would cost more, would she change her mind?

[Caroline Lucas]

If it were to be proved that such a change would make carbon emissions worse, I would reconsider my position, but I think that is highly unlikely to happen. The hon. Gentleman keeps talking about empirical evidence, but the only way for us to get relevant empirical evidence is to pass this Bill now and have the cost-benefit trials that we are talking about.

[Mr Reid]

Surely, if we passed the Bill, we would be more active at the coldest hour of the day—the hour before dawn—and would therefore use more fuel for heating at that time. The Building Research Establishment investigated this and found that there would be an increase in domestic heating if the Bill were passed.

[Caroline Lucas]

That was an early intervention in my speech, and if the hon. Gentleman listens to the next bit, some of these questions will be answered, because I do not agree with his point.

On reducing demand for artificial lighting, about 13% of domestic electricity consumption and about 30% of electricity consumed by commercial and public buildings currently goes on lighting. An extra hour of evening daylight would reduce the need for domestic lighting as people arrived home from school or work. Recent research by the Policy Studies Institute shows that the effect of the proposed clock change would be to lower demand for domestic lighting by as much as 9%. In other words, the Bill would lead to household savings of nearly £180 million per year on electricity bills alone. A common argument—I expect this will be made, so I will pre-empt it—against daylight saving time is that any drop in demand for evening lighting will be cancelled by the need for extra lighting on darker mornings. That may be true during the winter months, when the days are shorter, but the Bill proposes an adjustment of clock time throughout the year, which means less need for artificial lighting in the evenings all year round.

Regarding commercial demand for evening lighting, it is more difficult to quantify the potential savings for offices, workplaces and public buildings, as patterns of lighting often vary widely from sector to sector, but again, the studies indicate that overall demand from commercial customers is also likely to be lower. That aspect must be subject to detailed research during the initial trial period proposed in the Bill, as it offers the greatest potential for a nationwide reduction in domestic carbon emissions.

My second point is closely related to the first. Daylight saving will cut carbon emissions from power generation because it will even out the daily peaks in demand for electricity. For power companies, the late afternoon peak period determines the maximum number of power stations that are required to be on stream to match consumer demand. Currently, the extra capacity required for that short period of peak demand comes from inefficient and carbon-intensive sources such as oil-fired stations and pump storage facilities or, as has been said, by imports from France, which can be an expensive alternative.

The introduction of daylight saving would reduce peak demand for electricity on winter evenings. During that famous 1968-71 experiment with retaining British summer time throughout the year, the evening peak was reduced by 3%. Research carried out by the university of Cambridge calculates that lighter evenings now would reduce peak demand by up to 4.3%. The electricity industry also acknowledges that a reduction in evening peak demand would reduce carbon emissions by avoiding the need to keep inefficient and polluting spare generating capacity on stream.

The university of Cambridge study calculated that a move to daylight saving would mean a drop in CO₂ emissions from power stations, across the UK as a whole, of about 450,000 tonnes a year. That is the equivalent of taking off the roads about 200,000 cars. There would also be a significant reduction in power companies’ generating costs, both for resources and for the transmission and distribution infrastructure.

In addition to reducing demand for lighting, daylight saving also offers potential for reducing fuel costs and carbon emissions from heating. Domestic demand for heating is highest from November to February. The PSI study found that whereas there is little variation in average temperatures between 6 am and 8 am, when most people leave the house, temperatures tend to fall much more quickly in the late afternoon, around sunset, when people are arriving home from work or school.

Since the introduction of daylight saving will mean that it gets colder later, it is possible that households will be able to save money on their heating bills, while shrinking their carbon footprint. A small increase in fuel use for heating in offices and commercial and public buildings may be likely because of the earlier start to the day, but the resulting carbon emissions will be offset by reductions in domestic fuel use, so overall there is a clear reduction in carbon emissions.

[Malcolm Bruce]

Does the hon. Lady acknowledge that the fact that the temperature does not change much between 6 am and 8 am is because that is the coldest time of the day, and that is exactly the time when the cost of heating to compensate for the cold is at its highest, and that the energy consumption required at that time would be much higher under the changed rules than it is at present?

[Caroline Lucas]

No, I do not accept that, and I do not think that it is what the evidence suggests. One of the points that the right hon. Gentleman is making has more to do with the way in which we generate energy now and our spare capacity, rather than being a fundamental point to do with changing to daylight saving hours.

In all of the three areas that I have discussed—reducing demand for lighting, efficient management of peaks in demand, and reduced demand for heating—the greatest potential savings lie in household energy use. For this reason, I believe the Bill offers an easy and inexpensive means of combating fuel poverty. Many of us have constituents, often elderly ones, who struggle to pay their electricity bills and their heating bills. In Brighton and Hove, for example, more than 20,000 households, many of whom are my constituents, have been identified as fuel-poor—in other words, forced to spend over 10% of their income on energy bills.

I am not suggesting for a moment that the Bill will allow any of us to relax our efforts to eradicate fuel poverty, or to ignore our duty to take meaningful action on cutting carbon emissions. But the beauty of the Bill is that the action that it requires is simple, while the benefits that it will bring are profound.

[Mr MacNeil]

I hear the hon. Lady making an argument about what could/will/should/may happen. Can she point to an empirical example? I pointed to Indiana, where there was an increase in energy consumption of 1 to 4% and presumably, therefore, an increase in carbon, methane and so on. Where is the empirical study that she is talking about?

[Caroline Lucas]

The hon. Gentleman seems to be obsessed with Indiana. There may well be other reasons why the results in Indiana were shown to be what they were. As many people have said, we need to look at what the results would be in the United Kingdom. There is one way to find that out, which is to allow the Bill to progress to the next stage so we can establish that.

[Dr Whiteford]

I share the hon. Lady’s concerns about carbon emissions. It is important that we take that into account. I also share the concerns about fuel poverty. However, my fundamental concern is that pre-dawn temperatures are so much lower than temperatures towards the daylight hours that people will spend much more on fossil fuel heating for their homes, rather than going out at a slightly less cold time of day. They will have to use heating and lighting in far greater quantities in the middle of the night.

[Caroline Lucas]

We can trade statistics across the Floor of the House for a great many hours and not become very much the wiser. The points that the hon. Lady makes are serious ones, but the way to explore the matter further is precisely to allow the passage of the Bill and to have the cost-benefit analysis that it proposes.

[Mr MacNeil]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Caroline Lucas]

No, the hon. Gentleman has spoken a lot. [Interruption.] Oh, he is going to agree. In that case, I shall let him speak.

[Mr MacNeil]

Perhaps I have misled the hon. Lady!

Why reinvent the wheel? Why not look to other parts of the world where the change has taken place and avoid three years of misery and the inevitable change that the UK and Portugal have experienced before? I say to the good people of England and Scotland, let us make sure that we learn from elsewhere before we go through such misery, because, I must regretfully tell the hon. Lady, the evidence from elsewhere does not support the supposition and conjecture at all.

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, who just reminds me never to trust him again! My giving way was an aberration, and it will not happen again.

I return to the point that any impact analysis of the Bill’s proposed changes has to take place in the country and nations under discussion, not in another place with completely different variables that we cannot analyse or factor into our equations.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on her passion in setting about the Luddites who are against any change. Is not her argument bolstered empirically by the graph showing energy consumption on the last BST Monday and the first GMT Monday?

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his remarks. Yes, indeed, there is plenty of empirical evidence to support our argument. As I say, however, the most important thing is to move the Bill forward so that, with the same figures on everybody’s laps, we can have that debate and make the same analysis.

In closing, I reiterate what others have said about how the Bill will also benefit tourism in the UK. My constituency owes a great deal of its prosperity to tourism, with about £690 million entering the Brighton and Hove economy last year. In the wider south-east region, the sector employs more than 300,000 people, about 8% of the work force. The Bill enjoys broad and enthusiastic support from all sections of the tourism industry, and it is estimated that moving to daylight saving will boost tourism throughout the UK by about £3.5 billion and create 80,000 jobs.

That is just one more argument to add to the many that we have heard today about why, at the very least, the Bill should progress to the next stage of its passage through Parliament. The issue should be analysed properly. I think the cost-benefit analysis will demonstrate that the trial should go ahead, and as a result all of us will have a much better quality of life.

12:07

[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) on the Bill, which I am happy to support, and the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on her helpful remarks. I agree that the Bill is about scrutiny and debate as much as anything else, and I find it extraordinary that anybody would want to deny us the opportunity to have the issue sorted once and for all.

I have a long memory, and as colleagues have said we seem to go round and round on the issue. Every so often, it crops up again, we have a debate, it goes away because it is never properly decided on, and then it comes back again. I recall Sir John Butterfill in 1996 introducing just such a Bill.

[Mr MacNeil]

I should like to counter the hon. Lady. The issue has been decided on, but some malcontents return to the debate every so often. Perhaps that is one way of looking at it.

[Angie Bray]

The hon. Gentleman knows, however, that the problem with a private Member’s Bill is that it has to get over certain hurdles on a Friday, and that depends on how helpful people want to be. Such issues do not receive the proper scrutiny that they deserve unless we bring everybody’s concerns to the table and consider them in the round.

Sir John Butterfill, as Members said earlier, also attempted to introduce a private Member’s Bill back in 1996, and that is when I first became involved with the issue, working with him on his legislation. His measure was called “daylight extra”; the one before us is called “daylight saving”.

We have heard from the lighter evenings campaign, and Later Lighter—or rather, Lighter Later—has also commented.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

I think that the measure should be called “Churchill time”, as my hon. Friend so cleverly suggested today. She represents an urban constituency and I represent a rural constituency, and historically farmers have been against such a shift, but I have talked to the NFU, and it is at worst neutral on the issue, so does my hon. Friend agree that the world has changed significantly since it was last debated? Farming in Devizes has diversified; we have a huge tourism industry, and I have had nothing but very strong support for the measure, call it what we will.

[Angie Bray]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point. I was pleased to have a small role in suggesting the good title of “Churchill’s time”, which would be helpful to us patriots who get rather annoyed when people suggest that we are being pushed into this move by an EU directive or that we are going back to Berlin time.

[Mr MacNeil]

Perhaps rather than Churchill time, it should be Chamberlain time: appeasement is what is happening.

[Angie Bray]

It was Churchill who recognised that by going on to summer time, we would get more out of our factories and generally be more productive. That is why it was so useful during the war effort.

I introduced this matter as a member of the London assembly, because for Londoners, it is a no-brainer, although I appreciate that other regions have concerns and that not every region will think the same way. I was delighted to have full support from all parties on the London assembly. That was the one occasion when I found myself in complete agreement with the then Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone. It was a very happy, if unusual, occasion.

I was contacted before this debate by many of my constituents, urging me to speak in favour of the measure. We must remember that we are talking about a period of scrutiny and a trial, and are not prescribing what will come out at the end. This is an opportunity for everybody to put the facts on the table so that we can sort the matter out once and for all.

Even in the mid-1990s, when I was doing the legwork for Sir John Butterfill’s Bill, I was aware that some of the old Scottish objections had less resonance. We have moved even further beyond that now.

[Malcolm Bruce]

I, too, was very much involved in that Bill. I took part in “On the Record”, which had a live studio audience and a phone-in. At the beginning, the vote was two to one in favour of the idea, and at the end it was two to one against. Nearly all the representations against the idea came from the south and south-west of England, not from Scotland.

[Angie Bray]

General polling suggests that the public feel rather differently from that particularly small sample. At the time, Sir John Butterfill was ably supported by two Scottish Labour MPs, George Foulkes—now Lord Foulkes—and Brian Wilson, who made it clear that the measure would be good for a large part of Scotland. As we have heard today, the move can only be a good thing for the vast majority of the population in Scotland, as well as in England and Wales.

At the time, we were deluged by letters from Scottish farmers saying that the arguments were a bit patronising because they did have electricity in their barns. Some Scottish builders also wrote to us to say that they would prefer to drive to their job of work in the dark if they could have an extra hour of light towards the end of the day, because they would be able to do a longer day’s work.

[Dr Whiteford]

One reason why farmers in parts of Scotland are less opposed to the measure than they were 40 years ago is that they now have heating and lighting in their steadings. That rather undermines the carbon saving argument. The farmers to whom I have spoken are less than enthusiastic; at best they are neutral. Clearly, they are not diametrically opposed, as they once were, but that is because they are now able to heat and light the buildings that they use in the early morning.

[Angie Bray]

In a sense, that makes the point that we are moving forward. All those arguments can be put on the table when we have the scrutiny.

I went to a Scottish university, St Andrews, and one of my flatmates never saw any daylight. Admittedly, he chose his own hours, but he used to go to bed in the early hours of the morning and rise at about 2.30 or 3 o’clock in the afternoon. By the time he had scrubbed his teeth and stepped outside, it was pitch dark again. A little light might have done him some good—he never looked a very healthy colour.

The number of organisations that support the Bill speaks for itself: ROSPA, the police, sports bodies—including my local group, the Old Actonians, which contacted me—the hospitality industry, the tourist industry, the CBI, environmentalists and many more groups say that we should have a serious think about how we set our clocks.

Call me a bit lazy, but I have to admit that were I to be involved in the scrutiny, I would not plump for Churchill’s time exactly, because I think that would have been two hours forward in the summer. I am more of a compromise girl, and my view is that if we have a chance we should go on to permanent British summer time, not least because I get sick to death of changing my clocks twice a year. Having a settled time would be very handy, and it would be a compromise that would give us a bit of extra light in the afternoon when it would be used most effectively.

I am not sure that I want to move as far as keeping it light until midnight. When I was at St Andrews university it was light until about 11 o’clock at night at certain times, and that seemed a little bit too long for me. I am a British summer time girl and I am for sticking with it right through the year, but that is another argument that will be tested if we have scrutiny and a trial. That is the only way that we can move out of the revolving door of private Members’ Bills. Let us have proper scrutiny, so that the matter can be decided once and for all for the benefit of our constituents and the country as a whole.

12:16

[Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)]

First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) on securing the opportunity to debate this issue. Things such as environmental, social and economic benefits, fuel poverty and so on have been discussed in detail, but it is disappointing for me as a Member from Northern Ireland that so little thought has been given to the impact on that part of the country. We are not just further north but further west than the constituencies of almost anyone else participating in the debate, and that would have an impact if the changes were to take place.

The hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray) said that it was important to allow debate, and that that was the Bill’s purpose. I agree, which is why I will support the Bill, but I get slightly nervous when I hear the rather zealous opinions expressed against those of us who have concerns that we want considered. We are simply dismissed as though we were trying to hold back progress in some way.

[Angie Bray]

I would be very disappointed if the hon. Lady were to get the impression that I do not recognise the concerns. I think what I said was that all regions will have very different views, but that there will be an opportunity for those views to be put on the table and discussed and scrutinised properly. Of course all regions will have different views for different reasons, and I hope she accepts that I realise that.

[Naomi Long]

I do indeed, and the fervour that I referred to was not hers. However, some of the questions that have been raised have not been answered. For example, we must consider the coincidence of the last trial with the introduction of drink-driving regulations, speed limits and so on. That has not been effectively addressed by any of the proponents of the change.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady not agree that the argument about breathalysers and seat belts in relation to the last trial back in 1968 to 1971 is slightly flawed? Seat belts were not compulsory until 1983, and in my experience very few people used them before that time. In the same way, people did not take a great deal of notice of the breathalyser in the early days of the drink-drive laws.

[Naomi Long]

I do not entirely agree. Although it was not compulsory to wear a seat belt, they were fitted in cars in that period, and I think people did take note of the breathalyser, because prosecutions were made.

[Mr David Hamilton]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Naomi Long]

No, I wish to make some progress.

Those points are not the crux of my argument, because I do not wish to speak against the Bill. I am speaking in favour of it, but I am simply raising issues that I wish to be given due consideration as part of the trial.

It is important that those of us who come from the north and west of the UK have the opportunity to put our concerns on record. Rather than rehearse arguments that have been made, which have been incredibly English-centric with the exception of a few hon. Members sitting in front of me, I wish to talk about a specific issue in Northern Ireland.

[Albert Owen]

As a Welsh MP, I am certainly not English-centric. I made the point that we need empirical evidence from all parts of the UK so that we can formulate a proper argument. Indeed, the only data available on energy savings are UK-wide data from National Grid, but we need to consider whether there are different periods of peak demand within the UK. The hon. Lady is right that the Bill will get those data out into the open.

[Naomi Long]

Had the hon. Gentleman waited a few minutes, he would have heard me say that he was one of the few who said that studies are required specifically on the Northern Ireland context. To date, I have encountered very few specific references to the Northern Ireland situation in the correspondence and lobbying that I have received, but the Scotland situation has been addressed. The assumption is that the opposition to the change would come purely from Scotland, and little thought has been given to the impact on Northern Ireland.

I have received much correspondence in favour of the changes, but it has been generic and mainly on the GB situation—people in the south are very much in favour, but less so in the north. Scotland was at least addressed in that correspondence, but not Northern Ireland. Few have considered the impact on the more westerly and northerly areas of the UK, but we must take care to do so.

More importantly, there has been surprisingly little debate on this issue in Northern Ireland—it does not come to the minds of many people. In advance of today’s debate, I took it upon myself to write to a small sample of representative groups to ask for their opinion, including the Federation of Small Businesses Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action, the Northern Ireland Independent Retail Trade Association, the CBI and the Institute of Directors in Northern Ireland, Sport Northern Ireland, Translink NI, which is our largest public transport provider, the Age Sector Platform and the Ulster Farmers Union, from which I received a number of responses. None raised huge objections to the proposal, but all indicated that they had given the matter virtually no consideration. I do not believe that daylight saving is on the radar of Northern Ireland political debate.

[Malcolm Bruce]

The hon. Lady is making a very important point about northern and western areas. Have the people of Penzance considered what it will be like to have sunrise in mid-December at 9.14 am, half an hour later than it currently is in Belfast?

[Naomi Long]

Sunrise times are critical. Belfast will be less affected than the north coast of Northern Ireland, where the changes would be much more significant. In some places on the north coast, sunrise would be 9.50 am in mid-winter, which would significantly change people’s quality of life.

[Mr David Hamilton]

I have come here today with an open mind, with no view on whether we should accept the proposal or not. I endorse what the hon. Lady said about daylight saving being a non-issue, certainly in my area. I have received one letter from a constituent who asked for things to remain the same.

On transport, there are millions and millions more vehicles on the road now than there were in the ’60s, so would the change be worse now than it was then?

[Naomi Long]

I confess that I have not given a lot of thought to that, because I wanted specifically to look at the differential impact. I am prepared to accept that there is a body of evidence on the UK generally, but I wanted to consider the impact specifically on Northern Ireland. The different patterns of transportation and commuting in different parts of the UK also need to be considered, and I will come back to that.

I am happy to support the proposal for a study on the basis that the Bill does not state that that would lead automatically to a trial. There has to be a cost-benefit analysis first, and on that basis, I would be happy to support the proposal. I would wish to be convinced, however, because the Bill has many positive elements—they have been stated today. However, I need convincing that people in my constituency, and Northern Ireland as a whole, would experience those positive elements.

The effect of the time change on my constituency would be marginal. In winter, there would be a later dawn, but it would not be a hugely significant change. However, in the spring and summer, the change would undoubtedly be slightly beneficial in the evenings. In the north-west of Northern Ireland, however, sunrise in December, as I have mentioned, would be about 9.50 am, which by anyone’s standards is quite late. The argument has been made that the gain in the afternoon would be significant, but actually it would be insignificant. Sunset would move from 4 pm to 5 pm, which is when people are travelling home from school. However, most of the commute will happen afterwards, so it will have little significance for commuter patterns in that part of Northern Ireland. That has to be looked at carefully.

I wrote to Translink, and it responded:

“The proposal would effectively mean darker mornings for longer in the Autumn/Winter, particularly in the mornings when most traffic is on the roads at one time, i.e. schools, commuters. Darker evenings in our view are not as big an issue as the majority of our schools traffic is over by 16.30/17.00 and the evening traffic is more staggered, with most commuters making their homeward journeys between 17.30 and 18.00.”

Translink is not convinced that the argument put forward necessarily holds true. A point has been made about more rural areas, where, for example, children stand at the roadside to be collected for school, but are picked up within the school perimeter on the way home. That is an important difference that raises significant issues.

[Ben Gummer]

These are important local issues, but surely we are dancing on the head of a pin. This is an opportunity to save 1.2 million tonnes of carbon per annum—the equivalent to 200,000 cars—and to make popular carbon savings. That is impossible in any other walk or area of life. Why can we not just take it?

[Naomi Long]

The hon. Gentleman misunderstands me—I am in favour of the Bill. It is exactly that kind of response to alternative views that fills me with trepidation, because it dismisses those who might wish to bring to the table other opinions and concerns, and those who actually wish to see some evidence. If the point of the Bill is to get evidence to support the case, it is bizarre that Members have decided already that they have all the evidence required. If they have, they should simply have introduced a Bill saying that we should go ahead and make the change. If we accept the argument that evidence needs to be gathered, surely we have to accept the argument made today that we have to look with an open mind at the impact on all the parts of the UK. With a background in engineering and science, I would prefer to enter any assessment with an open mind looking at all the evidence, rather than with a closed mind having already decided what the outcome will be.

[Mr MacNeil]

The hon. Lady has shed some light on why she supports the Bill—to get some analysis and gather information—although she has some reservations about the trial period. Has she had any indication from the hon. Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) of the timeline, of when the analysis might happen and how many years the trial would last?

[Naomi Long]

The questions about the trial, the commissioners and the report are answered in the Bill. I am less concerned about the timeline than about the potential impact and the consideration given to slightly more remote areas. Those who live in the west of Northern Ireland often feel that they are ignored in the Northern Ireland Assembly, which sits in the east, where most of the population is based. Those living in the north and west of the UK are likely to feel even more that way if we overlook them when considering the impact of the Bill. It is important that we think about that.

There is a second issue that is unique to Northern Ireland—our land border with another region. That has to be considered carefully. There are cost and practical implications of the Bill. Many of the farms in Northern Ireland straddle the border—they do not exist entirely on one side or the other—so there are practical issues about time differences. Some people live on one side of the border, but go to school, church or community organisations on the other side. It is a very permeable border. Therefore, the proposal would have a significant impact on those living in the area. One Member said that they found it incredibly irritating to have to change their clocks twice a year, and I think that some people in Northern Ireland might find it irritating to have to do it three or four times a day.

It should also be noted that consideration is being given in the Republic of Ireland to a potential change—consideration that has been largely motivated, I think, by the debate here. However, we must recognise that we have no influence over the outcome of those considerations. We therefore need to proceed with caution. Although I accept the point made by other Members that it is not impossible to have different time zones within the UK, although not across these islands, it would not be a desirable position.

[Albert Owen]

The hon. Lady is making a strong argument. On the point about the land border, my constituency is closer to the Republic of Ireland than it is to England. The proposal would therefore have an impact on travel between west Wales and the Republic of Ireland. However, I happen to think that if the proposal went forward in the United Kingdom, Ireland would come into line with Europe, as well as with the United Kingdom.

[Naomi Long]

I would not wish to stand here and predict what the Irish Government might choose to do, because that is not a matter for this House, and I do not think that they would welcome our intervention. However, from my perspective, it would worry me if there was a time difference at the border, as it would have an impact on trade. A number of Members have emphasised the potential benefits of our being on, as it were, European time, but we should remember that our biggest trade partner is the Republic of Ireland, which is currently in the same time zone as us. Indeed, the fact that we are so inextricably linked was one of the arguments put forward in support of the recent economic bail-out, for example. We need to give detailed consideration to those issues. It would also help if we considered the cost implications when trialling the proposal, because it would affect basic things such as the timetabling of rail and bus services that operate on a cross-border basis. Those operating such services would incur the cost of having to re-do their timetables during the trial and, if it was not a success, having to re-do them again afterwards.

I am in favour of looking at the proposal. There are potential benefits to giving it consideration.

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

When I heard the hon. Lady say that she wondered what the people of Penzance thought, my ears pricked up and I ran here from my office as fast as I could. I cannot speak for the people of Penzance, but I can most certainly speak for the people of Truro and Falmouth. I want to reassure the hon. Lady, along with my hon. Friends, that since I have become a Member of Parliament, no issue has generated as much interest in my constituency. More people have contacted me on this issue than on any other.

[Naomi Long]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention, although it was not me who mentioned Penzance—I think it was mentioned in an intervention by another Member. I have to say that no issue has generated less interest from my constituents in my postbag. I have to be entirely honest about this: I think I have had one e-mail from a constituent on the issue. However, that would not dictate my view on it, because there may be merit in considering the proposal, even though it might not be a pressing issue for all my constituents.

I do not wish to prolong the agony any further. I simply wish to say that I support the proposal to conduct a study.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on her principled position and would like to ask whether she agrees that all the opponents of the proposed change should nevertheless support the Bill, because it simply seeks to remove the ambiguities and uncertainties that she has highlighted.

[Naomi Long]

I have reached my own conclusion, and I am sure that other right hon. and hon. Members will have done likewise. I would like to see the detailed evidence and the cost-benefit analysis considered properly, so that we can make a fully informed decision. I am therefore happy to support the Bill. In doing so, however, I would urge those taking it through the House to consider the impact in Northern Ireland. Those of us from Northern Ireland might not account for a huge number of people in the House, but the proposal would have a significant impact on us. We also face unique circumstances, owing to our border with the Irish Republic. Both those issues should be considered in much more detail than they have been to date.

12:34

[Mr Don Foster (Bath) (LD)]

My hon. Friend and constituency neighbour, the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), who is no longer in his place, made a telling intervention in which he pointed out that nothing in the Bill—and, indeed, nothing that Parliament can do—will increase the amount of daylight in any particular location in this country. The Bill seeks to find the most effective way of using daylight for the benefit of our constituents, whether they be in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or England.

I was delighted to hear the speech by the hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long). Her contribution was one of the finest that we have heard. She clearly fully understood the purpose of the Bill. She rightly expressed concern that there had not been much debate on this issue in Northern Ireland, and pointed out that limited research had been carried out there. She also said that she had a number of concerns about what might happen if we adopted the proposals. She went on to say, crucially, that because of the lack of evidence, and because many people believe that there will be real benefits from the proposals, the Bill should be given a fair wind so that the appropriate research, and the appropriate analysis of that research, can be carried out, and decisions could then be made on whether any further action should be taken. It has to be said that her speech was in marked contrast to those made by representatives of the Scottish National party.

The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) made a valuable contribution. She began by saying that she was agnostic about the issue. She admitted that she had approached it with an open mind and that, having reviewed the evidence, she was not particularly impressed by it and was now ambivalent about the matter. That is fine, and at least she did not deny that there might be merit in the proposals, and in continuing with the research. That was in stark contrast to the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil).

[Dr Whiteford]

If the Bill dealt with no more than the research phase, I would be very happy to support it. It does not, however; it proposes a trial and, in the light of all the evidence that I have seen so far, I do not believe that the case has been made for such a trial.

[Mr Foster]

The hon. Lady condemns herself out of her own mouth. She says that the evidence to date does not persuade or convince her. Fine. Then let us carry out the research, and the independent analysis of that research, and bring back a proposal to the House through an order so that we can decide whether to go on with a trial.

[Mr MacNeil]

rose—

[Mr Foster]

I will give way briefly, but the hon. Gentleman has taken up a lot of the House’s time today.

[Mr MacNeil]

I am not sure whether that is good or bad. The hon. Gentleman is arguing for research, and analysis of that research, to be carried out. If that were covered by one Bill, and the trial were covered by another, many of us would feel a lot more secure. This Bill, however, sets us on a slippery slope, and we would go from A to B to C very quickly. We would have three years of misery, followed by repentance from all sides as we changed back to the current system.

[Mr Foster]

The hon. Gentleman seems to change his tune with almost every intervention. Only a few minutes ago, he was intervening on the excellent contribution from the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) to ask whether she would be willing to change her mind on the basis of empirical research. I want to ask the hon. Gentleman whether he will change his mind on the basis of such research—

[Mr MacNeil]

rose—

[Mr Foster]

I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman. He would do well to read in detail what the Bill says. I applaud the hon. Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) for introducing a Bill that addresses all the approaches to this issue that might exist in this House. Perhaps it is worth reminding Members and others listening to the debate what the Bill actually says. It states:

“The Secretary of State must conduct a cross-departmental analysis of the potential costs and benefits of advancing time by one hour for all, or part, of the year, including…a breakdown, so far as is possible, of these costs and benefits for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland”.

It goes on to state that the analysis must take into account research that is done

“by such bodies as the Secretary of State thinks fit.”

The Bill then proposes that there should be

“an independent Commission…to assess the analysis”

and that the commission should publish that assessment. On the trial period that clearly so worries the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, the Bill states it will only be introduced

“If the Commission concludes that the advancing of time by one hour for all, or part, of the year would be beneficial to England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland”.

The Bill does not state “or Northern Ireland”; it states “and”. The change would have to benefit all those areas. Even then, the Bill states that none of that can happen until an order is placed before Parliament. I do not understand why the hon. Gentleman said that the Bill would railroad people into doing something. Clearly, that is not the case. Even worse, he went on to state that it was a kamikaze leap. The Bill is exactly the opposite of that.

[Mr Reid]

When my hon. Friend read from the Bill, he failed to point out that the commission is unelected. The Bill does not state who appoints the commission; it appears from nowhere. If that unelected commission comes to the conclusion that making the changes would be beneficial, the Secretary of State must introduce the order. The Government would have no choice in the matter. The Bill would give far too much power to the unelected commission.

[Mr Foster]

My hon. Friend, who I know is a staunch opponent of any moves in the direction set out in the Bill, has revealed that his only real concern is about the details of the appointment of members of the independent commission. I am absolutely certain that the hon. Member for Castle Point would be more than happy for him to be a member of the Bill Committee. I am sure that she would be very happy to look favourably on an amendment that alters how the commission is introduced.

Many hon. Members still wish to speak. I would have loved to have spent time discussing how we only have to look at the business of the House every day to see how nearly every debate would be influenced by a move in the direction proposed by the Bill. Whether in our debates on the economy, crime, the retail industry—particularly in terms of tourism—and many other issues, the proposals would give us an opportunity to analyse whether, in each of those areas, a real benefit could be brought to our constituents in all parts of the country.

When the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar—I regret that I cannot correctly pronounce his constituency; I apologise for that—makes flippant remarks, he does himself a disservice. He challenged my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) to carry out a trial by changing his personal clocks. He failed to realise that the disadvantage to my hon. Friend would be that he would have to operate on a different time zone from the rest of his hon. Friends and from the work of this Chamber. That would put him at the same disadvantage as businesses and people in this country who try to operate not only with people in Europe—one of our main trading partners—but, as I said in an intervention, with people in emerging countries, such as China and India.

[Malcolm Bruce]

If the benefits of these long summer evenings are as great as the proponents of the Bill suggest, why do the House and schools in England not set an example by continuing their business during the eight weeks that have the lightest evenings of the year?

[Mr Foster]

My right hon. Friend begins his question with the word “If”. That is a move in the right direction, because I assume that he is now prepared to allow research to be carried out. He can ignore, as can the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, the fact that all the research evidence, whether from Ipsos MORI, npower or MoneySavingExpert.com, demonstrates that more people in Scotland are now in favour of moves in this direction than of retaining the status quo. They can ignore that—that is fine—and they can say that the people of Scotland are unsure, and they may be right, but that is why the research is so important.

I hope that all hon. Members have had an opportunity to look at the excellent publication produced by my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who has done so much work on this issue, and has, I am sure, been supporting the hon. Member for Castle Point. The hon. Member for Belfast East is right to say that if we are saying that more research and analysis needs to be done, none of us can argue that all the research is yet conclusive. However, in the summary of his excellent book, my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East notes that if we move in this direction it is likely that there will be safer roads, a reduction in the NHS budget, a reduction in crime, improved health and well-being, a boost to UK tourism, a reduction in our energy bills, a reduction in our carbon footprint, and increased international business and trade.

Those are aims that every Member of this House should be seeking to achieve, and that is why every Member of this House should support this Bill to allow further research and analysis to take place, and only then, if it all points in the right direction, to enable a trial to take place.

12:46

[Gordon Banks (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Lab)]

I commend the hon. Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) for bringing the Bill before us. I hope she is enjoying today’s experience a little more than the Postal Services Bill Committee, on which we both sit. I suspect she might have become sick of the sound of my voice over the past few weeks, but if she will tolerate me a little longer I might have something interesting to say to her.

The Bill certainly has a strong campaign behind it. The hon. Lady and those at Lighter Later deserve credit for so forcefully making their argument. Perhaps there is a less vocal and less organised argument against these proposals but, as we know, it is not always those who shout loudest who win the argument. The Opposition do not disagree with the aims of the Bill in principle, but we are concerned about how it will work in practice. I will come on to some of those concerns in a moment or two.

The basic goal of the Bill, as I understand it, is to examine the possibility of changing our daylight structure to ensure that we make the best use of the available daylight. Members on both sides of the House have contributed to a very lively and interesting debate, and not just today. As much as we would like to, we can never increase the number of daylight hours in each day. That is the will of a higher power, if Members believe in such a thing; if they do not, it simply has to do with how the earth spins on its axis. Either way, we have no control over it.

The Bill sets out provisions for a three-year trial of the new daylight regime. However, that trial can begin only after completion of a cross-departmental review by Government and the establishment of a commission to determine whether the change will benefit all parts of the United Kingdom. Even after that, the Secretary of State would have to lay an order before Parliament. It is therefore clear that any change to our time structure would have to clear a considerable number of obstacles—or perhaps I should say “checks and balances”—after Second Reading before anything came to fruition.

I commend the hon. Lady for being so conciliatory in the wording of her Bill, but I remain to be totally persuaded that the wider public are as convinced as has been suggested today. If the Bill were passed today, a trial period should be instituted before the implementation of any wholesale change.

[Mr Reid]

The hon. Gentleman mentions the three-year trial. Has he noticed that under clause 3 the success of the trial has to be reviewed

“Not later than six months before the Trial is due to end”?

Effectively, therefore, it is only a two-and-a-half year trial that could cover only two, not three, winters.

[Gordon Banks]

Irrespective of the length of the trial—two and a half or three years—it is a substantial period that would enable the gathering of a significant amount of information and allow us to make the decision on the basis of information gathered in the UK, not in Indiana or somewhere else, and the decision would be based on the UK in the 21st century.

When I read the official transcript of the recent Adjournment debate on this subject, I was surprised by the strength of personal belief in favour of the change, but I was also impressed by the quieter voices arguing for the status quo. That clearly shows that there are differing viewpoints north and south of the border.

[Mr Bradshaw]

May I congratulate my hon. Friend on, I think, his intention to give the Bill a fair wind? He talks about doubt, but may I commend to him the excellent report by the Policy Studies Institute, published in October, on the impact in Scotland? There has been a lot of discussion about Scotland today, and the report suggests that the benefits for Scotland are even greater than those for the rest of the United Kingdom.

[Gordon Banks]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. There is a lot of conflicting information and there are many conflicting viewpoints. My suggestion, without giving away too much of my speech at this point, would be that a review could gather a lot of important information that could be well studied and well debated to allow a longer-term decision to be made.

[Mr MacNeil]

I would be interested to know the view of Opposition Front Benchers on a sensible, symmetrical shorter period either side of mid-winter. That would be a compromise between some of the extreme positions that we have heard.

[Gordon Banks]

I was waiting for that one. If I remember correctly, the hon. Gentleman said that he had not had a sensible response to any of those proposals in any of the debates, and I do not think he will get one from me, either.

In performing my duties as Member of Parliament for Ochil and South Perthshire, I have received representations from constituents that show the strength of feeling on both sides of the argument. I know that the Lighter Later campaign carried out polling that targeted Scotland and highlighted the fact that the majority of Scots backed lighter evenings. As with any poll, however, the key is how the question was asked and what questions were asked. I am sure that if any assembled mass of people were asked whether they would like an extra hour of daylight they would say yes. One must ask, however, whether they fully understood that to get the extra hour of daylight in the evening they would have to spend an extra hour in darkness in the morning. That is the key question, so, understandably, I reserve judgment on some of the poll results as they stand.

As we have heard, this is not the first time these issues have been debated in Parliament. I am aware of the work that the former Member for Stafford, David Kidney, carried out but he was not, despite possibly wanting to be, the trailblazer in this area. Robert Pearce, the Member of Parliament for Leek, introduced a Bill in 1908, and we have already heard from the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) about Benjamin Franklin’s contribution, with his remark:

“Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”

I am early to rise and late to bed, so what does that make me? Answers on a postcard please. Here we are, 100 years later, continuing the debate. I suspect that it could rumble on for another 100 years. The only good thing is that nobody here would then be able to be held to account for their decisions or blamed for them.

As we have heard, these debates often rear their head at this time of year. Having lived in Scotland for many years, I would welcome an extra hour of daylight at the end of a traditional working day. When I think about the Bill, however, I remember the old saying that not all that glisters is gold. Although we would all appreciate an extra hour of daylight at night, the question is whether it is worth the sacrifice of darker mornings. Although that might not be a major issue for constituents in the south of England, irrespective of what has been said, I know for a fact that it is an issue the further north one travels in the UK—and not just in Scotland.

I note that the hon. Member for Bournemouth East has been particularly vocal in his support for the Bill, but equally I hope that he will concede that he represents one of the southernmost constituencies in the UK. Were I in his position, I might well argue as strongly in support of the Bill as he does. I am sure, however, that he and the hon. Member for Castle Point would agree with the Prime Minister that we need a solution that suits all parts of the UK, not just the south. I recognise that that is an objective of the Bill.

[Mr Ellwood]

We went to some lengths to ensure that the Bill benefits not constituencies but the whole of the UK, and paid attention to Scotland specifically. Let me take the hon. Gentleman back to the debate that Scottish Members had last week. I think it was the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) who commented that the previous Prime Minister, who is from Scotland, had said that this would be good for Britain and for Scotland.

[Gordon Banks]

I do not want to argue or disagree with the hon. Gentleman. If he bears with me, my position will become a little clearer.

[Mr Ellwood]

It is fuzzy at the moment.

[Gordon Banks]

I think it is important for the Opposition to identify some of the problems that a number of people outside the House, as well as a number of Members, have with the Bill. However, I believe that there is a solution to those problems, and I believe that that solution is in the Bill.

Let me now make our position a little less fuzzy, for the benefit of the hon. Member for Bournemouth East. Although we have some unanswered questions, it is fair to say that there is a strong argument in favour of analysis and more detailed scrutiny. I shall say more shortly about the problems that are envisaged. However, as we believe that scrutiny of the Bill and its objectives would be carried out most effectively in Committee, we will not oppose its Second Reading today.

The Bill’s approach broadly mirrors that of the National Farmers Union of Scotland and Visit Scotland. They, like us, welcome the debate on the issues, but have yet to develop a firm viewpoint on the potential viability of the changes. We reserve our judgment on the Bill until there has been a thorough and detailed assessment of its effects. Indeed, I believe that that is the Bill’s objective.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Mr Harris), who said in the recent Adjournment debate that the benefits to Scotland were “unquantifiable in advance.” Let me take that a step further, and say that at this stage the risks may also be unquantifiable. That is why we will not oppose the Bill’s progress to Committee, where those risks and benefits can be explored more fully.

[Malcolm Bruce]

That is a perfectly fair position, but does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that virtually all the evidence has been produced by interest groups who have approached the issue with a view to determining evidence in their favour? How can he be sure that any analysis will be resourced fully and objectively to ensure that the counter-arguments are investigated properly? So far, all the investigation has been on one side, and people are reaching conclusions that the evidence does not support.

[Gordon Banks]

I would argue that the independent commission’s job is to scrutinise both sides of the argument independently. Only then can it comply with the Bill and the regulations to make the position fair for all parts of the United Kingdom. I trust the independent commission to be able to do that. With great respect to Members who are present, I suspect that most of them have decided whether they support the Bill, but I am not convinced that the whole United Kingdom has reached that point. We need to reach a decision based on factual evidence that is relevant to the United Kingdom in the 21st century.

[Albert Owen]

Although I support the Bill, I—like many other Members, including the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas)—want to see the evidence, but we, as Members of Parliament, must be leaders as well. We must collate the evidence and then make our decisions. We cannot always be weathervanes; we must sometimes be leaders.

[Gordon Banks]

I do not disagree with that. After the commission has reported and trials of a permanent change have taken place, it will be possible for a vote to take place in the House, and for us all to make our views known at that stage.

[Naomi Long]

I agree with the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) that we should not wish to be weathervanes. I too have said that I will support the Bill, although the subject is not much of an issue in my constituency. However, it would be foolish for Members of Parliament to disregard evidence completely. Decisions must be evidence based, and it is therefore important for that evidence to be collated throughout the United Kingdom.

[Gordon Banks]

I could not agree more. I put my faith in the commission’s ability to gather evidence from all over the United Kingdom, and to analyse it in an independent, structured and transparent way.

Following the Adjournment debate, I was intrigued to read in Hansard that the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell), had said that his Department had consulted on the Bill, but, despite repeated calls from Members during the debate, had refused to share the results.

The Government’s view on the Bill has not been made clear. If one were to believe the Under-Secretary—and I have no reason to doubt him—the Government appeared unlikely to support it. However, I read in the Sunday papers a fortnight ago that according to soundings from the Government a U-turn was in the offing. I look forward to clarification of the Government’s position from the Minister. I would, however, add my voice to those of hon. Members who have called on the Scotland Office Minister to release the information so as to allow us all a better opportunity to scrutinise the Bill. Perhaps the Business, Innovation and Skills Minister currently on the Front Bench might be able to encourage his colleague to do that.

The Bill calls for a cross-departmental analysis of how this change might affect all parts of the United Kingdom. It appears that the Scotland Office Minister is already ahead of the curve in that respect. If the Government have, indeed, already carried out some preliminary studies into the Bill’s proposals, I would be interested to know whether the BIS Minister or the hon. Member for Castle Point have any preliminary ideas of the initial financial burden of such a change on the Government and the economy. I note that the hon. Lady has tabled a number of written parliamentary questions to Government Departments. They have received mixed responses, which highlights the need for much more detailed cross-Government research and study. I hope that will be facilitated in Committee, should the Bill be passed today. I would also be grateful if the Minister confirmed whether the Government have had any discussions with our devolved Administrations about the contents of the Bill.

As has been mentioned, this is not the first time this issue has been debated in the House. We even have a precedent between 1968 and 1971, when a similar proposal was trialled. Although it was slightly different, the impact was, perhaps, comparable. It might surprise Members to learn that I was 13 when those first trials took place, and they clearly had an effect on some people in Scotland. I am reminded of the event by footage that showed schoolchildren walking to school wearing headlamps and reflective sashes. [Interruption.] The Minister mentions miners’ lamps, and I was about to come on to that. With Scotland’s proud traditions of coal mining, I am sure those headlamps were not in short supply back then, but I would guess a supply of headlamps might be harder to find today after the decimation of the coal mining industry in Scotland by the Conservative party. That is my one partisan comment of the day, and I hope the House will allow me it. I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr Hamilton) will, as a former miner, have appreciated it, although he may be too busy keeping his eye on the clock to have taken note of the remark.

On a more serious note, I have to confess that the issue of children walking to school, or waiting at the roadside to be picked up to go to school, in the dark still concerns me greatly. I acknowledge the work carried out by the Policy Studies Institute; although I am not qualified to comment on whether there was any link between the daylight change and those statistics, I think it is worth noting. It also again illustrates that this Bill requires further, and much more detailed, scrutiny.

I also note that there has been a sustained campaign with many external supporters, but one thing I have learned as an MP is that the loudest voice is not always the right voice. I am not saying we disagree with the analysis and the opinion put forward by these many and varied organisations, but there are some inconsistencies. For example, the study by the Policy Studies Institute said that car accidents were more likely in the evening peak because of reduced visibility. However, if we implement this change will we not simply displace those accidents to the morning? I also do not agree that people are more attentive in the morning than in the late afternoon or early evening. These themes must be developed further in Committee and by the independent commission.

I will conclude in a moment, but one issue that has, perhaps, been missing from the debate so far is the change in people’s lifestyles across the UK that this change might cause. Indeed, one constituent who contacted me to voice her opposition to the Bill suggested we might have to change the working day in Scotland from the traditional 9 to 5 to 10 to 6.

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that given that this Bill promises a detailed analysis and a trial, and given that it could save 100 lives on the roads, create 80,000 jobs and cut 450,000 tonnes of carbon emissions, as the Mayor of London says, if there was ever a political no-brainer, this is it?

[Gordon Banks]

If the hon. Lady had been listening to my remarks, she would have known that we are not going to oppose the passage of the Bill today. However, some questions need answering and that is why the Committee and the commission will sit. It is right that these questions are asked and that some of these concerns are being voiced in this debate.

I wish to go back to the debate about 9 to 5 and 10 to 6. We already have industries, such as construction, that do not conform to a traditional working day. I wonder whether any study has been commissioned on how these changes will have an impact on family life as a result of possible work practice changes, rather than just the leisure aspect. Such work practice changes may come about if people whose jobs currently operate from 8.30 am to 5 pm find themselves working from 10 am to 7 pm in future.

[Matthew Hancock]

Given that the hon. Gentleman has made a strong argument for the need to ask more questions and receive more answers, for example, on the construction industry, why will he not vote in favour of the Bill?

[Gordon Banks]

I have already told the House that we are not going to block the progress of the Bill. We look forward to the information that will flow from the Bill and allow us the opportunity to come back to have a full vote before any overall change is made to the time structure in the United Kingdom for a period longer than the trial period.

I have discussed only a few of the issues that have concerned me and are concerning others outside this House. If Members on the Government Benches did not share these views, they would not be proposing the commission and so on. The Opposition do not intend to oppose Second Reading stage today. However, as I have outlined, many issues deserve much greater scrutiny in Committee, should it be the will of the House that the Bill is passed today.

We should not be making decisions in this House on the basis of emotion; we should be making informed decisions, which is what the electorate expect of us. The Bill proposes to give us a raft of information, on the basis of which we would be able to make well-informed decisions, not emotional ones.

13:07

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Edward Davey)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris), because in my many discussions with her during the past few weeks she has shown a huge amount of knowledge and passion about this issue, and enthusiasm for it, and she displayed that again when she opened this Second Reading debate.

This has been a well-argued, serious and good-natured debate. We have heard different voices from different parts of the United Kingdom; we heard from representatives of Berwick-upon-Tweed, Cornwall, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. I am particularly grateful to the hon. Member for Castle Point because until I knew that I had to deal with her Bill I had not realised that I was a Minister of time—perhaps I should have done, given that the former Business Secretary, Lord Mandelson, was known as the “prince of darkness.” Obviously, I have had to get to grips with these issues.

Concerns have been raised in the media about this change. Reference has been made to a certain Peter Hitchens during our debate, as has the idea that somehow we would be adopting Berlin time. So I congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray) and for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who have rechristened the idea “Churchill time”. That is not only a positive reference to the wartime coalition, but a reference to the great man’s membership of both the Liberal and Conservative parties.

As the hon. Member for Castle Point said, the subject of this Bill is a perennial issue, which has been debated and discussed often in this House and elsewhere. However, it seems that this time those who wish to effect this change have done some excellent research and have mobilised their arguments very effectively. I shall begin by briefly summarising the Government’s position. I agree with the hon. Lady that some of the arguments put forward for lighter evenings are compelling. Evidence would indeed appear to suggest that there could be an overall reduction in the number of road accidents and fatalities, and there could be benefits for some business sectors, particularly those most reliant on trade with other parts of the European Union. In addition, recent studies suggest a possible positive impact on energy usage and, as a result, carbon emissions.

However, we entirely appreciate that the arguments do not all point in the same direction. There are concerns about the longer, darker winter mornings that would result: much is said about the impacts in northern parts of the UK, but a change would mean delaying dawn in mid-winter even in London until after 9 o’clock, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce) has pointed out.

[Mr MacNeil]

I want to challenge the argument that there would be a carbon saving, because empirical studies show the exact opposite: more electricity would be used on the darker mornings and power consumption would increase by between 1% and 4%.

[Mr Davey]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. I shall assess that issue and put both sides of the argument because we must have a balanced approach to this important debate.

I have also heard arguments about the disadvantages of very late light evenings in summer. Experience of a similar change in Portugal suggested problems with children’s sleep patterns and some have suggested there could be implications for antisocial behaviour. In other areas, the case remains unproven. I think that the hon. Member for Castle Point would accept that it is unclear whether there would be a positive impact on crime rates and general public health. Some of the claims about the extremely positive impact for specific sectors would no doubt benefit from closer scrutiny.

Against that background, it is not surprising that opinion remains divided. People’s views depend significantly on where they live, what they do for a living and whether they enjoy outdoor pursuits. Also relevant are personal preferences such as whether one is a morning person or not. I am not sure whether you are a morning person, Mr Deputy Speaker—you are shaking your head. One thing we remain convinced about, which must lead us to oppose the Bill, is that we cannot make this change unless we have consensus throughout the United Kingdom. That has recently been made clear by the Prime Minister on more than one occasion.

We must acknowledge that the change would have widely differing impacts on day-to-day life in different parts of the UK. They would be particularly acute in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where it would not get light in mid-winter until nearly 10 am in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Belfast; in Lerwick in the Shetland islands, it would not get light until 10.8 am on new year’s eve. Although hon. Members have spoken of changes in public opinion in Scotland, it is clear that much opinion understandably remains against the proposal.

The case is particularly difficult in Northern Ireland and I listened with great interest to the hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long), who approached the debate in a considered and objective way. As she said, unless the Republic of Ireland also made the change, there would be additional cross-border complications. These issues would need further consideration and careful prior consultation with the Irish Government.

[Malcolm Bruce]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the point made in an earlier intervention that the Republic of Ireland would automatically follow whatever we did was a bit patronising and arrogant given the consequence in places such as Galway, where sunrise would be at 9.51 am? It is pretty reasonable that the Republic of Ireland should have a view on that.

[Mr Davey]

I shall discuss that in more detail, particularly in relation to Galway bay, if my right hon. Friend will be patient.

The Government’s view is that the consensus across all parts of the UK needed to justify passing legislation on this does not exist. That simple fact must lead us to oppose the hon. Lady’s Bill today, but I hope that some of my later remarks will be of comfort to her.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I agree with much of the Minister’s comments and I have concerns about the Bill, but should it not at least proceed? There is a debate to be had out there and the public are really interested, so why not let it proceed so we can go through those arguments once and for all?

[Mr Davey]

If my hon. Friend will have a little patience, I hope that he will react positively to some of my later remarks.

Our quandary is this: we appreciate the benefits that the change could bring, but we do not want any one community to be disadvantaged, or for its members to feel that they have had such a fundamental change to their daily lives foisted upon them.

There have been regular debates about the benefits of the change advocated by the hon. Member for Castle Point. Trying to change the clocks is, as I said, not a new idea. It is more than 40 years since an attempt was made to move away from Greenwich mean time in the winter months as well as the summer throughout the UK. Between 27 October 1968 and 31 October 1971 an experiment was conducted, and summer time—that is, Greenwich mean time plus 1 hour—was adopted throughout the year in order to test public opinion about continuous summer time. Although this was British summer time all the year round, it was known as British standard time.

There were two general arguments for a move to British standard time. The first was that the move would avoid the inconvenience of changing the clocks in the spring and autumn. The second depended on the fact that in those days most of our trading partners on the European mainland were on central European time throughout the year, the concept of summer time not being one that we had managed to sell to them at that time. So by adopting permanent British summer time, we brought ourselves into line with those countries at a time when we were eager to increase trade with our European neighbours, and at a time before e-mail and other technology made communication possible at any time of day or night.

Consultations carried out by the Government in 1966, before the experiment to change to British summer time throughout the year, revealed the divergence of opinion between the majority of people in England and Wales, who favoured British standard time all year round, and those in Scotland and the north of England, who were opposed. Nevertheless, the experiment went ahead and lasted for three years. A review of the experiment was conducted in the winter months of 1968-69 and 1969-70. The review found that it was impossible to quantify at that time many of the more important claims about the advantages and disadvantages of British standard time.

However, what the review did reveal was the many practical objections that were raised by the farming and construction industries and others involved in outdoor work, such as road maintenance workers, postal workers and dairy workers, particularly in the north of England and Scotland, who claimed that the change caused discomfort and inconvenience because of the late sunrise in winter. They also claimed that they could not easily change their working hours because of public demand for early services. Those objections would probably have less force today as the economy is less dependent on agriculture, and equipment can operate at night, but they are still a factor.

There was also concern about hazards to schoolchildren particularly in rural areas, who would be going off to school up to an hour and a half before dawn. We have heard much about that argument today. It appears that any increase in road casualties in the mornings would be at least offset by reductions in the evenings, but significant concerns about that remain, particularly in more northern areas.

Following a free vote—I repeat, a free vote—in Parliament on 2 December 1970, the House voted by the decisive margin of 366 to 81 to revert to the current arrangements. There must have been some weight behind that decision if, having lived through the experiment for three years, so many Members in all parts of the House were not persuaded. Portugal did exactly the same after it experienced four years of a similar experiment.

If we want to get a more recent idea of how a change to our summer time arrangements might impact on the United Kingdom, we can look to Portugal, which moved to central European time in 1992. Of course Portugal is in a different geographical location from us, but being at the westerly extremity of Europe it is currently on the same time zone as the UK and Ireland. Since most of its trade is with the European Union, its Government decided, as we had in the 1960s, that it would be beneficial to be in the same time zone as its neighbours and trading partners. The experiment was abandoned in 1996 and Portugal reverted to GMT because its population decided that the gains of lighter evenings were not, in the end, offset by the pain of darker mornings. So perhaps the change did not bring all the benefits that were hoped for, which highlights the practical reality and consequences of an actual change.

Some of the complaints resulting from the Portuguese experiment were not necessarily ones that I had immediately thought of. For example, the light summer evenings apparently had a disturbing effect on children’s sleeping habits, which in turn led to poor performance in school and lack of concentration. Pollution from road traffic increased as the rush hour in the summer months coincided with the hotter times of the day. Let us remember that these are actual findings from an actual experiment.

Perhaps more importantly, Portugal found that the energy savings arguments were relatively weak. The intended savings in household electricity consumption were disappointingly low as, according to the report, the change resulted in an “insignificant saving.” It would appear that the extension of daylight hours meant that people tended to engage in other leisure activities after work, which might have been good for the leisure and tourism industry but unfortunately led to higher energy consumption.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Will the Minister speed up his statement? Many Members on both sides would like to get home before it gets dark.

[Mr Davey]

I should say that I do not intend to speak for too long, if that encourages my hon. Friend to retake his seat.

[Mr MacNeil]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Mr Davey]

On getting home before it gets dark?

[Mr MacNeil]

Is not the intervention of the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) an example of such a speedy, kamikaze, headlong and blinkered rush into an inevitable period of repentance? I urge the Minister to inform the House as he is doing, of matters regarding Portugal, which I certainly did not know about, and please to continue.

[Mr Davey]

I am grateful for that, but my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) always goes about things in a calm, balanced and measured way.

There was also evidence, gathered by the Portuguese Government at the time, that people’s mental health suffered, and there was an increase in the sales of tranquilisers and sleeping tablets as many people, like their children, were unable to get enough sleep. Information from insurance companies indicated that there was a rise in road traffic claims, rather than the reverse, and the Portuguese Government decided that the disadvantages outweighed the benefits, so they went back to Greenwich mean time. Their view was that there was nothing to prevent any business that traded internationally or throughout Europe from starting their operations earlier if they wanted to, but that there was no need to inconvenience the whole population on their behalf.

So, we have had two experiments in different countries which were both abandoned not necessarily for the same reasons, but because on the whole more of the population found that the change affected their lives for the worse, rather than for the better.

[Mr Bradshaw]

I am sorry and surprised that the Minister sounds more negative than the shadow Minister, but may I concur with the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) by suggesting that the Minister’s speech would benefit enormously from a radical sub-editor’s pen?

[Mr Davey]

One thought that of the right hon. Gentleman’s speeches on many occasions, but, as I thought he would know, it is incumbent on the Government to put their thinking on the record, because people want to understand why the Government have reached their decision.

[Mr Reid]

I hope that my hon. Friend will not pay any attention to those who want him to curtail his speech. I am very supportive of what he says and want to hear all that the Government have to say.

[Mr Davey]

And I am keen to say it.

I was saying that we have had two experiments in different countries which were abandoned not for the same reasons, but because on the whole more of the population found that it affected their lives deleteriously. Of course, the argument that it is necessary to be in the same time zone as other member states in the European Union is perhaps less important than it was, because expansion has meant that the EU spans three time zones, not just one.

Jersey also deserves a mention. We have heard about Gibraltar, but what about Jersey? Normandy is just 14 miles away from the Channel Islands, but, despite being closer to the French coast than to the UK mainland, in a referendum in October 2008 Jersey residents voted against moving to central European time by 17,230 votes to 6,564.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Davey]

I am not going to give way. I want to make some progress, and then I shall take some interventions.

Of course, much of the reason for the vote against the change was that the residents did not wish to be in a different time zone from the rest of the United Kingdom, but it has to be said that farmers in Jersey were among the most vociferous opponents of a move to central European time.

Let us consider the detailed arguments that have been put forward today, starting with the arguments on energy saving and climate change. Apart from the general attractiveness of lighter evenings, one of the most persuasive arguments in favour of moving the clocks forward is to save energy. One reason why I came into politics was to push forward the green agenda, and like most people I think that any change that might contribute to saving energy and reducing our carbon output needs to be considered carefully.

I have looked particularly closely at the evidence on that issue, because it is not totally one-sided. The report for the 10:10 Lighter Later campaign quoted studies by Cambridge university that suggested that darker evenings produce a 2.2% increase in demand for electricity in the late afternoon and early evening, which requires the use of the most expensive supply source provided by inefficient power stations that have to be brought on line to cope with the demand. The studies also suggested that a reduction in CO₂ emissions of 1.2 million tonnes could be achieved during the six winter months, which is the equivalent of removing 20,000 cars from our roads over the same period.

However, a recent response from the Department of Energy and Climate Change to the Energy and Climate Change Committee pointed out that energy saving benefits are far from clear-cut. It concluded that although we might expect overall energy use to be reduced by extending British summer time, the effects are likely to be small. The most significant effect would be the switch of lighting demand from the evening to the morning. Although, on the one hand, the working day would be more aligned with natural daylight, leading to a reduction in demand, there are other factors, not least that households may be more likely to turn lights on when it is dark than off when it is light. Energy use might therefore increase due to people leaving lights on after switching them on because of the darker mornings. Although evening peak electricity may flatten or reduce, evening peaks between Britain and France may become more aligned, which would have implications for prices and security of supply in situations of low generation capacity margin.

Finally on this issue, a study in 1990 by Paul Littlefair, the project leader for the Building Research Establishment’s programme of daylight research, concluded that the introduction of single/double summer time would lead to extra lighting energy costs, probably to the tune of £10 million a year. We should remember that Portugal ended its experiment with central European time because the small energy savings could not justify the inconvenience that the change created.

In this area, as in others, the evidence is not clear-cut. However, the importance of the climate change agenda means that even relatively small savings are worth while. As I am a firm believer in that agenda, I believe that we should consider this matter seriously.

I shall turn to the arguments regarding business and trade. One of the major arguments for the 1960s experiment of moving to British standard time was that it would be far easier to do business with our European neighbours, which would have positive impacts on our economy and prosperity. The European Union remains our largest trading partner, but since 1970 the world has changed and is now almost unrecognisable. We now have a Union of 27 member states over three time zones, whereas previously the UK was trying to join a common market of six countries all in the same time zone. At that time, the population and the Government were interested in tapping into the prosperity that access to that market could bring.

[Mr MacNeil]

rose—

[Mr Davey]

I want to make some progress, because I have an important announcement to make to the House.

The Republic of Ireland is one of our most important EU trading partners—we trade more with southern Ireland than with Brazil, Russia, India and China. That is partly for historical reasons and partly because many multinational companies have their headquarters there. Sadly, it has taken the recent banking crisis in Ireland for us to remember how important our trade with Ireland is. There would be concerns in that regard if we harmonised our time with the European mainland, because we would be unharmonising it from the Republic of Ireland.

What of the large proportion of our business that is not conducted with the EU? Who would benefit and who would be the losers? Companies trading with the far east might benefit, while those trading with the USA might not. Once again, we realise that there is no right answer and that compromises must be made.

[Naomi Long]

On the inconvenience to those who trade with the US, we should remember that the US is one of the biggest foreign direct investors in the Northern Ireland economy. That is another specific way in which the measure would impact on Northern Ireland and it must be given close consideration.

[Mr Davey]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I have taken the trouble to speak to the Irish ambassador to London to ask for his views and those of his Government on this issue, and I want to put those views on the record.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

Forty years after the last experiment, is it not right for the Government to consider the fact that the population has changed? We have an older population who will benefit from the extra hour. Farming has also changed hugely, with much more milking being done and cattle being kept inside, so there is no reason not to change the time. I am surprised that the Government are not more supportive of the Bill.

[Mr Davey]

I urge my hon. Friend to be a little patient, but I would say that if he had listened to my remarks, he would know that I was agreeing with those exact points.

I wish to move on to one of the major benefits of daylight savings. It is considered that moving to central European time would prevent many serious road accidents and fatalities, and I totally accept that good evidence is available. ROSPA produced a paper in support of the private Member’s Bill tabled by the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr Yeo) in 2008, which showed that 80 fatalities a year could be saved. Department for Transport figures corroborate that statistic. In Scotland, evidence from the Transport and Road Research Laboratory after the 1960s experiment showed that road casualties had declined by 17% in Scotland, compared with 11.7% across the whole of Great Britain.

Even in the matter of road safety, however, we should remember that other factors are at play. Our streets are becoming ever safer, and we have one of the lowest rates of road deaths and serious injuries in Europe. The 1968 experiment was conducted at the same time as the first drink-driving laws came into force, and they will have made a material difference. It is possible that other initiatives to improve road safety have had a far more beneficial impact on road safety than the time change would have done, and it would also have had a far greater impact on wider society. For example, improvements in driver behaviour, car safety, road designs and speed restrictions will have contributed to a fall in casualties.

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

A Friday morning Bill on this matter came before the 1997 Government and was talked out, and I believe that the last Government talked one out. I hope that today, the Minister will vote with his Conservative colleagues in favour of the Bill.

[Mr Davey]

I do hope to be able to get to my concluding remarks. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] It will make me very popular with my hon. Friends.

Another issue that has been raised in the debate is the leisure and tourism industry. The Lighter Later campaign’s report makes much of the fact that tourism and leisure would be boosted by £2.5 billion to £3.5 billion, and that an extra 60,000 to 80,000 jobs would be created. I am not yet entirely persuaded by the evidence that has been presented. Many overseas tourists come to the UK for our wonderful cultural attractions and history, which of course can be appreciated at any time of the day. When people are on holiday, they can choose exactly how to plan their day to make best use of the daylight hours.

I understand that evidence is available showing that, particularly in the so-called shoulder seasons of spring and autumn, more people would be tempted to go out and visit leisure attractions if it were lighter longer, and that jobs would probably be created. The research shows that that would particularly benefit certain towns. More robust research is therefore needed. We need to understand whether the change would lead to a net creation of jobs or whether there would be any displacement of employment in other areas.

[Brandon Lewis]

I do not mean to protract the debate, but does the Minister agree that one benefit in those shoulder seasons for an area such as Great Yarmouth, where tourism is important, would be that we could move away from the 16% to 18% unemployment in some areas that is caused by the closed season? It might just help employment and back up the figures that he is talking about.

[Mr Davey]

That is why I am keen to see extra research on the matter. At the moment, the evidence is not absolutely clear.

I wish to discuss Scotland, which is a key issue in the debate. The Prime Minister has made it very clear that we need consensus, and that has clearly not been the case in the House tonight. [Interruption.] I have obviously got the wrong time zone.

As we all know, altering our clocks cannot have an effect on the amount of daylight, and the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) made that point very well. The issue is how we distribute the hours of daylight that we have. Hon. Members have discussed different sunset times in the debate. Under the proposals, sunset in Edinburgh in mid-October would move from 6.15 pm to 7.15 pm, but sunrise would not be until 8.45 am, and on new year’s eve, it would not get light in Lerwick until after 10 am, as I said earlier. It is therefore unsurprising that the Scottish Government are nervous of such a change, and that they have said that they would not want it imposed on their population.

We should remember that Scotland is not only further north than the rest of the United Kingdom, but quite far west too—surprisingly, Edinburgh is west of Bristol—which means that, come winter, it has relatively little daylight, in fact about eight hours, and that that light comes later. It is possible in principle to have two UK time zones—one for Scotland, which could perhaps include Northern Ireland, and one for England and Wales—but we should rule out that option on such a relatively small island as ours. We should remain a United Kingdom.

I have heard what the hon. Member for Castle Point and others have said about the evidence of changing opinion in Scotland, but that evidence is far from definitive. Although the Scottish Government and many Scottish MPs and MSPs from all parties remain opposed to the change, the matter is being debated in the Scottish Parliament. A recent motion in the Scottish Parliament, which was signed by MSPs from all parties, stated:

“That the Parliament notes that consideration is to be given by the UK Government to move Britain’s clocks forward by one hour; believes that such a move would be detrimental to Scotland, in particular raising concerns over road safety in the early morning and the safety of children walking to school, and could have a negative effect on Scottish businesses, including the construction and agricultural sectors, and urges UK ministers to retain GMT in the winter and BST in the summer.”

Of course, if the Scottish people clearly decide that the evidence shows that there would be many benefits for them as well as those living further south, the position could change, but we must have the consensus that the Prime Minister demands.

In conclusion, the Government see many arguments in favour of the change that the hon. Lady is promoting. We would all appreciate the chance to make the most of lighter evenings and welcome the benefits to energy saving and road safety that the change might bring, but unless and until we can extend the hours of daylight—I doubt that we could do that—lighter evenings mean darker mornings. A responsible Government must take careful account of the disadvantages that that would bring to certain communities.

The Prime Minister was therefore quite right to make it clear that any change would need the support of all parts of the UK. As things stand, despite some of the arguments we have heard today, it remains clear that there are a number of significant issues in respect of such a change for Scotland and Northern Ireland, and I believe that we cannot go forward with the consent of all three devolved Administrations.

In addition, the subject of the Bill is a devolved matter in Northern Ireland, so any UK-wide legislation would require the consent of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Until we have clear evidence of the necessary consensus across the UK and the necessary consent of the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Government’s clear view is that it would be inappropriate for this Parliament to pass the hon. Lady’s Bill or any other legislation on this matter.

That point applies to the hon. Lady’s Bill even though it does not directly propose a move to central European time or an immediate trial. After all, the Bill includes a provision that would automatically trigger a trial if the proposed analysis reached a positive conclusion. As such, passage of the Bill would still risk being perceived by many in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and by the devolved Administrations, as an attempt by Westminster to impose unwelcome change. I acknowledge, however, that the Lighter Later campaign has made some good points about the potential benefits of change to the UK as a whole, and I again pay tribute to her efforts.

The Government agree that this is an important issue that must be taken seriously. As a result, although we cannot support the hon. Lady’s Bill—and I would urge the House not to give it a Second Reading—I can announce that we intend to consider the question further. Specifically, if the Bill does not progress today, we intend to do two things. First, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills will write to the First Ministers in Scotland and Wales, and the First Minister and Deputy First Minister in Northern Ireland, not just to draw attention to this debate and the arguments made in favour of change, but to invite them to consider entering into a dialogue with us on this matter. That is the way to achieve the consensus that the Prime Minister believes is necessary.

Secondly, the Government would intend to publish a review of the available evidence concerning the likely effects of moving to central European time in the UK. This review would be a cross-departmental effort, drawing on relevant unpublished data held by Departments, and include consideration of the coverage of the evidence base, identifying any gaps and providing views on its validity. That might not be as comprehensive a consideration of the matter as the hon. Lady’s proposed commission might achieve, but it would be a significant step forward in the analysis of the arguments for and against change on this important issue. As such, I hope it would also facilitate a future dialogue on the matter into which the devolved Administrations might wish to enter.

I hope that the House will agree that our proposals provide a more appropriate way forward on this important subject, and that they can garner greater consensus across the UK than the Bill.

[Rebecca Harris]

claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).

Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.

The House proceeded to a Division.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the No Lobby.

13:41

Division 142

Ayes: 123

---

Conservative: 73
Labour: 37
Liberal Democrat: 9
Alliance: 1
Green Party: 1
Independent: 1

Noes: 8

---

Conservative: 5
Liberal Democrat: 2
Scottish National Party: 1

Question put accordingly, That the Bill be now read a Second Time.

The House proceeded to a Division.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the No Lobby. There seems to be another problem, perhaps with frozen pipes.

13:55

Division 143

Ayes: 92

---

Conservative: 63
Labour: 18
Liberal Democrat: 7
Alliance: 1
Green Party: 1
Independent: 1

Noes: 10

---

Conservative: 6
Liberal Democrat: 2
Labour: 1
Scottish National Party: 1

Bill read a Second time; to stand committed to a Public Bill Committee (Standing Order No. 63).

Gangmasters Licensing (Extension to Construction Industry) Bill

Friday 3rd December 2010 Commons Chamber

Second Reading

14:09

[Mr David Hamilton (Midlothian) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Jim Sheridan), who presented the Bill that became the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) and other colleagues who did a power of work on that Bill.

The Bill proposes to extend the remit of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, which currently covers only the agriculture and food processing sectors, to the construction industry. Gangmasters in those sectors are required to hold licences and to pay the very small fee of £400, but if the authority is able to expand into the construction industry, the fee will be reduced in proportion to the number of people whom gangmasters employ.

In the agriculture industry, licences are not revoked for a small transgression. The GLA works with gangmasters to try to ensure that they meet the necessary requirements, and only in the event of serious and continued breaches will the GLA use its power to revoke a licence. Since the Act came into operation, 110 of the 1,200 licensed gangmasters have had their licences revoked. The gangmasters’ organisation supported all those revocations.

Given the shortage of time, I shall have to abbreviate my remarks and not list all the case studies.

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Act was successful because it engaged everyone, from the National Farmers Union to the Transport and General Workers Union, and that it has been a quiet success because it has dealt adequately with the areas of responsibility? When it was first introduced, I had ministerial responsibility. The Government said, “Let us see if it works in this area of endeavour, and if it does perhaps it can be extended elsewhere.” Would it not be a terrible shame if the opportunity to explore that expansion were not taken today?

[Mr Hamilton]

It certainly would. I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the tremendous work that he did as a Minister at the time. As he says, the Act has been a success story that has not reached the press. The GLA has kept its head down and worked hard with the industry, and we now want that work to be extended.

The Bill does not create any new workplace regulations; it merely changes the enforcement of the existing regulations. That will raise more revenue in increased tax take than it costs. The current net cost of the GLA is £4 million a year, but according to the Treasury’s own figures, false statements of employment in the construction industry cost £350 million a year. There are other ways in which the Bill will create efficiencies on the front line. It will reduce the number of duplicate back-office roles between the GLA and the employment agency standards inspectorate, and will help to deal with issues such as trafficking. In the last few years, some Conservative Members have drawn attention to the amount of trafficking that is taking place, with the support of Oxfam, Anti-Slavery International and the Home Affairs Committee.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Like the hon. Gentleman, I supported the introduction of the 2004 Act, but does he agree that there have been problems in the way in which the GLA has operated since then? Some parts of it have become bureaucratic and interventionist, and some parts are expensive. Some legitimate gangmasters have encountered difficulties in their legitimate operations as a result. If the hon. Gentleman’s Bill becomes law, will he ensure that the GLA’s application to the building industry is slightly different from its application to the agriculture and food industries?

[Mr Hamilton]

That is not the information that I have received. Many people say that, by and large, the arrangements have worked very well. However, we will certainly need to tweak the system to ensure that it applies properly in the construction industry, and that the beneficial developments in the agriculture industry are transferred. It is not a question of increasing bureaucracy.

Construction is a dangerous industry, with a bad record on health and safety and employment rights and a record of avoidance of employment taxation. The Bill will tackle those problems. The Gangmasters Licensing Authority works; it does a good job and is supported by a wide range of groups including unions, employers and industry groups, as well as non-governmental organisations such as Oxfam and Anti-Slavery International. The GLA has forced rogue gangmasters out of the relevant sectors, but not out of the economy. Our aim is to the extend the GLA’s powers, and to transfer powers away from the employment agency standards inspectorate, a failing body that does nothing to support or protect honest employers.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

For the benefit of new Members such as myself, can the hon. Gentleman explain what has changed in the six years since the original legislation was passed in 2004? Why is it now felt to be necessary to add construction workers, when they were not included in the original measures?

[Mr Hamilton]

We have just sat through three hours of debate on another Bill, so I cannot go into all the details of such arguments as the time available to me has been cut right down to the bone. It is right that we discussed that earlier topic of course, and in that debate it was said that we should have an experiment and review things. Similarly, we said at the time of the original Bill that we would review how the GLA worked, and at some point we might come back with further proposals. We are doing that now. We have looked at the legislation and how it is working, and we now feel it is appropriate to transfer powers into this new area.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Hamilton]

I have not got much time, so I am trying not to take too many interventions.

Members come to this House for a range of different reasons. When I was a young delegate at a colliery, I had to do one the saddest things I have ever had to do in my life. A young lad in his 20s had been killed in an accident. Along with a colleague, I had to go to see his mum and dad the following day to explain what had happened in the accident. I therefore have a vested interest. I have a lot of friends who work in the construction industry, and I worked in a dangerous industry. I know what things are like. The saddest thing anyone could ever have to do is go to a household who have just lost a beloved one who had their whole future ahead of them. The effect of such an event on a family is terrible. That is why I am passionate about making sure that, where appropriate, health and safety legislation is put into operation. That is important.

I also believe the Government should look seriously at creating a single employment inspectorate and enforcement agency. The point has been made in the past that there are too many organisations working in silos; there are too many organisations working independently of each other and fighting over different issues. I know that many friends—indeed comrades—in the trade union movement do not want the role or structure of the Health and Safety Executive to be altered, but I think there is a strong case for merging the GLA, the employment agency standards inspectorate, the HSE and the minimum wage enforcement responsibilities of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs into a single body that could also work closely with the UK Border Agency. One such organisation or inspectorate covering all these bases would reduce the massive amount of administration involved in many cases and would mean the various agencies were working not independently, but with each other. That, in turn, would reduce the costs of each of these organisations while at the same time enabling them to be more effective in what they do.

[Mr Gray]

The hon. Gentleman seems to be moving away from what I understand to be the central purpose of his Bill. He is talking now about amalgamating the UK Border Agency, HMRC and other organisations, and creating one large organisation, which I fear would be particularly bureaucratic and difficult to control. Will he explain why he is seeking that very considerable bureaucratic change, when the purpose of the Bill seems to me to be reasonably simple and straightforward?

[Mr Hamilton]

The hon. Gentleman raises a correct point. If I had been able to read my entire 31-page speech, I would have answered all such points, but I have had to limit my remarks in order to allow the Minister to respond. This is an ambition. The GLA does good work in agriculture and we are seeking to extend its good work to the construction industry. That is what the Bill would do; it is as simple as that.

In my discussions with the Minister, I have suggested that other measures could be looked at in future to reduce the bureaucratic structure of many of the current organisations. My only interest in this topic is to help honest companies, who are competing against dishonest companies, and to protect employees. That is the key to the whole thing. I shall finish on that note, and I wish to thank everybody for being here for the debate. All I ask of the Minister is that in the interests of fairness, which was displayed in the previous debate, this Bill should go into Committee so that we can iron out a number of these issues.

14:19

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Edward Davey)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Midlothian (Mr Hamilton) on securing parliamentary time for his Bill. I recognise the depth of his interest in health and safety matters and in securing decent working conditions. Obviously he had a track record in this area before he came to this House, and it was a pleasure to meet him to discuss his Bill prior to today. I hope that I have a few things to say to him in the time that is left to me—

[Mr David Hamilton]

Sit down.

[Mr Davey]

The hon. Gentleman tempts me to sit down, but I will not be doing so quite yet because it is important to put the Government’s position on the record. I wish to say a few things that I think will have made his efforts worth while.

This Government, too, are committed to improving health and safety, particularly in construction, to ensuring fairness in the workplace and to encouraging and raising levels of compliance with workplace rights, in the construction sector and elsewhere. Where we differ with the hon. Gentleman is on whether licensing would be an effective solution to problems in the construction sector. Of course, licensing has its place as a tool in the regulatory arsenal. It is used in relation to labour providers in agriculture and food processing, as he said, and there are other examples too. However, licensing is an expensive and untargeted system of regulation. It burdens all with fees and inspections—the good and the bad alike—and with the risk that the worst businesses evade licensing altogether. Licensing can be an appropriate response to particular problems in particular sectors, but that does not mean it is appropriate in all cases.

[Andrew Bridgen]

I declare an interest, as I am a major shareholder in a food processing business in my constituency. North West Leicestershire is a major provider of building materials and is the base for many large construction companies, as hon. Members are perhaps aware. There is a huge difference between the agricultural and food processing industry and the construction industry, and therefore in the regulatory burden that those industries can carry. The food and food processing industry is a non-cyclical business—parts of it can even be counter-cyclical—and has been almost unaffected by the economic downtown, whereas we know that we cannot say that of the construction industry. I am very worried that any further burdens on the construction industry at this particular time, when it is struggling to deal with the effects of the last recession, could be particularly burdensome. It is not fair to compare the construction industry now with the more resilient food processing industry.

[Mr Davey]

My hon. Friend is exactly right in his analysis of the construction industry and of how we use licensing as one of the tools to deal with everything from health and safety to fairness in the workplace. We need to consider the conditions that need to be met before something such as licensing is appropriate. We need to consider whether existing enforcement arrangements are inadequate; whether there is hard evidence of illegal activity; where a licensing system would be a proportionate and effective way of tackling the problems that are seen; and where licensing would be practicable, enforceable and, finally, affordable. The Government do not consider that those tests have been met for the construction sector.

There is a misapprehension in some quarters that employment agencies that supply labour to the construction sector are unregulated, and that workers are unprotected. In fact, regulatory safeguards are already in place for all agency workers, whichever sector they work in. For example, employment agencies operating outside the Gangmasters Licensing Authority’s sectors have to comply with health and safety and working time legislation enforced by the Health and Safety Executive. They must also comply with the national minimum wage regulations enforced by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. In addition, they must adhere to special employment agency regulations enforced by my Department’s employment agency standards inspectorate—the EAS—which responds to complaints from agency workers, and carries out an additional programme of proactive, risk-assessed inspections each year.

On health and safety legislation and the work of the HSE in the construction sector, the hon. Member for Midlothian is rightly worried about health and safety, which is a big concern for the sector, but I am not convinced that a licensing system would improve the sector’s health and safety record. The GLA applies a range of licensing standards. The conditions for health and safety are intended to ensure agreement between the labour supplier and the hirer about who will have responsibility for managing day-to-day health and safety, including the preparation of risk assessments, but that is already clear in construction.

Under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007, the principal contractor has responsibilities for ensuring the health and safety of all individuals who work on a construction site regardless of their employment status. This includes directly employed workers, labour-only sub-contractors and the self-employed. In addition, each contractor working under the principal contractor has duties to every individual working under their control. Those duties are on top of the requirements that individual employers have to their employees. Duties of the principal contractor include the requirement to consult all workers involved in a project to ensure that the measures taken to protect their health and safety are effective.

[Gordon Banks (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Lab)]

I am listening to the Minister’s remarks with great interest. He has explained his position on why the GLA is not relevant to the construction industry, but will he expand on why he has changed his mind since signing early-day motion 1366 in 2009?

[Mr Davey]

I have considered all the issues that would have to be taken into account, such as whether it would be appropriate, proportionate and justifiable, and it is clear that the EAS does an extremely good job and that it deals with all the problems. Let me quote some of the statistics, which are worth bearing in mind. In 2009-10, there were 42 fatal injuries to workers in construction, with a fatal injury incidence rate of 2.2 per 100,000 workers per year. That compares with 105 deaths and a rate of 5.9 per 100,000 per year in 2000-01. Injury rates are also at an all-time low since the reporting regulations changed in 1995. That is done under the existing system. There has been some success and the previous Government should take credit for that.

It is clear that an extension of gangmaster licensing is not the way forward, but there is a case for taking a fresh look at our compliance and enforcement arrangements. As the hon. Member for Midlothian said, existing enforcement functions are undertaken by a number of bodies, including the EAS, HMRC, the GLA and the HSE. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs also has a role, in enforcing the agricultural minimum wage, but that will disappear with the proposed abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board as part of the public bodies review.

The single pay and work rights line has drawn those bodies closer together and has been a major step forward in creating a single port of call for workers who want advice or to report an abuse. It has also been a powerful spur to more joint working between the enforcement bodies, which are now carrying forward multi-issue cases together on a regular basis. However, the time is right to ask whether it is possible to build on the progress that has been made. I am therefore announcing today an intention to review the Government’s workplace rights compliance and enforcement arrangements to establish the scope for streamlining them and making them more effective. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will welcome that announcement. The review will be undertaken next year, when other priorities permit, and will be part of the wider rolling review of employment law being co-ordinated by my Department.

[Mr David Hamilton]

Who will undertake the review and who will be included in it?

[Mr Davey]

It will start in my Department and I envisage it looking at different ways of organising the Government’s compliance and enforcement work. It will consider whether incremental improvements can be made to encourage further co-ordination and joint working, such as better legal information sharing gateways and governance machinery, which would allow priorities to be discussed and set on a broader, cross-agency basis. I envisage it considering whether online and helpline employment law advice channels can be linked and streamlined. I also want it to look at the potential cost and operational benefits of enforcement models that would consolidate enforcement functions in a single body or fewer bodies.

The review will initially be carried out internally within the Government, as I said to the hon. Gentleman, but will involve meetings with key interested parties to solicit views and test thinking. My Department will publish a statement of initial findings and intended next steps next year in the context of progress reports on a wider employment law review—

14:30

The debate stood adjourned (Standing Order No. 11(2)).

Ordered, That the debate be resumed on Friday 28 January 2011.

Business without Debate

Friday 3rd December 2010 Commons Chamber

face coverings (regulation) Bill

Motion made, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

[Hon. Members]

Object.

Bill to be read a Second time on Friday 2 December 2011.

secured lending reform Bill

Motion made, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

[Hon. Members]

Object.

Bill to be read a Second time on Friday 21 January 2011.

Parliamentary Standards (Amendment) Bill

Motion made, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

[Hon. Members]

Object.

Bill to be read a Second time on Thursday 16 December.

[Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Is it recorded in Hansard that it was a Government Whip who objected to the Second Reading of the Parliamentary Standards (Amendment) Bill?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I have not the faintest idea. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we will wait until Hansard is published. It is an accurate reflection of what is said in the House.

[Adam Afriyie]

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Yesterday the House resolved unanimously that, if needed, the Government would allow time to amend the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009. If an amendment Bill does not come to Committee within the next few weeks, there will not be enough time even to leave that option open. Have you received information from the Leader of the House or news of a statement from the Leader of the House on this subject?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

No, I have not received from the Leader of the House any statement or indication that a statement is to be made, but I am sure that those on the Treasury Bench will have heard what the hon. Gentleman said.

Turks and Caicos Islands

Friday 3rd December 2010 Commons Chamber

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Angela Watkinson.)

14:31

[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

The Turks and Caicos Islands are a territory of the Crown for which we in Parliament have ultimate responsibility. During the past few months, I have spent considerable time dealing with the multitude of issues relating to the Turks and Caicos islands, in my capacity as chairman of both the Turks and Caicos Islands all-party parliamentary group and the British overseas territories all-party parliamentary group, as well as in my capacity as a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. I am thus extremely grateful for the opportunity to address the House this afternoon on this most pressing of subjects.

The Turks and Caicos Islands are a territory of some 26,000 inhabitants situated just south of the Bahamas on the cusp on the Atlantic ocean. They have been British in one form or another for several hundred years and were a dependency of Jamaica until 1962, when they became a Crown colony or British overseas territory, as we now call them. The islands that encompass the territory are well known for their award-winning beaches, world-class hotels and spectacular climate. Indeed, the tagline of the islands, “beautiful by nature”, could not be more appropriate. These aesthetic factors, coupled with a prime location for tourism, an English-speaking populace and a British constitution and judicial system made the islands one of Britain’s most successful territories.

However, the Turks and Caicos Islands of the present set a far more sombre scene. Endemic corruption, economic turmoil and violent crime are rife. The people of the Turks and Caicos Islands are currently hard pressed for optimism. Sadly, these previously dynamic islands have been in more or less perpetual stagnation for the past 18 months. The questions we all have to ask are: how has that been allowed to happen under the British standard, and why is so little being done to rectify that unacceptable situation?

The issues stem from the previous Administration, who presided over systematic corruption, selling off vast swathes of Crown land and running the islands as a personal fiefdom, despite the protestations of the resident populace, who fruitlessly whistle-blew to the UK Government. Finally, on 18 March 2009, after almost seven years of systemic corruption and on the advice of her UK Ministers, Her Majesty the Queen issued an Order in Council, giving the Governor the power to suspend the constitution. In August that year, the order was enacted.

Many saw the UK Government’s intervention as a necessity, and on the day of the suspension people walked down the street waving Union Jacks, with every faith that, in true British spirit, Her Majesty’s Government would restore the territory to its former glory. So, where has it all gone wrong? How has this proud and loyal British territory found itself in an arguably worse position than before the UK Government took direct control? I am sure the Minister will tell us shortly.

I intend to outline the issues facing Turks and Caicos, the root causes of those problems and how I feel Her Majesty’s Government can address the urgent matters at hand. Let me preface that by paying tribute to the current governor, His Excellency Gordon Wetherell, and his team. I have seen at first hand the terrific challenges that they face, and I do not envy their task. They do a sterling job, and given the conditions we could not expect more of them.

There are, however, failures, and they are the fault not of the interim Government but of the completely insufficient support that they have been afforded by Her Majesty’s Government and, moreover, the previous Labour Government, in particular, who grossly under-resourced the Administration and expected the impossible.

In August, I was fortunate enough to visit the Turks and Caicos Islands, where I met hundreds of local people, businessmen, politicians, Government officials, community workers and church leaders. All of them were desperate to have their voice heard, frustrated by the lack of action and deeply concerned about what the future might hold for them. The islands are truly in crisis.

On one afternoon during my stay at the Governor’s residence, “Waterloo”, on Grand Turk, there was an armed robbery only a stone’s throw from the property. Violent crime has completely spiralled out of control; guns and illicit substances are being smuggled over on sloops from Haiti, and there is no way to enforce the borders or territorial waters. There is, however, a $2.5 million radar system that would significantly alleviate the problem, but for more than 18 months it has sat in a crate deteriorating, while sheer bureaucracy prevents its installation. Already, the storage fees exceed $50,000, and that is a disgrace.

Meanwhile, the once sound infrastructure of the islands is crumbling, education is declining and illiteracy is rampant. Schools and teachers have their limited resources stretched to capacity, and there is no meaningful approach to vocational training, with only 2% of students going on to college.

The prison on Grand Turk is desperately overcrowded, with minors and adults sharing cells, and it was called little more than a “training college to harden criminals” by some of the community leaders I met. That problem is compounded by a severe backlog in the justice Department, with courtrooms in meltdown and the local magistrates simply unable to deal with the backlog. I believe that many problems can be attributed to the civil service of Turks and Caicos, which needs to be completely rebuilt. There have been no audited financial records since 2006, and there are an untenable 2,300 people on the payroll. A large proportion of the civil service has been compromised by corruption, yet there is little attempt at reformation. It currently takes about six months to process a driving licence and 11 months for a work permit. The level of “pay to play” bureaucracy is utterly unbelievable. At the same time, the islands are, as one resident put it, “being micro-managed into oblivion”. Layer upon layer of legislation is bottlenecking the last vestiges of enterprise. Until the civil service is reformed, the work of the interim Administration will continue to be undermined. That must be a priority.

Even with all those problems, the islands are primed for investors. I have it on good authority that there are businesses and individuals waiting in the wings to plough investment back into TCI. Turks and Caicos desperately needs to bring that business back. Business built the islands and it has been their lifeblood over the past three decades. To put it simply, if the Government continue to allow an unfavourable climate for private enterprise, the islands will not recover.

The people of Turks and Caicos have not given up; they will do everything possible to put their islands back on track and we have a duty to help them. The overwhelming majority of people want to create a climate of genuine partnership. The interim Administration and the Governor’s office can depend on assistance from the private sector in almost every aspect of restructuring. Those in the private sector have offered office accommodation, professional services and even their own money to assist, but they are continually met with barrier after barrier. Their frustration is completely understandable. They appreciate that finances and resources are tight, and that we live in a climate of austerity. They are looking not for handouts or bail-outs, but for stability and economic security. Her Majesty’s Government have a duty to provide that.

Hanging over all these matters is the remorseless task of discovery by Helen Garlick and her officers, who compose the special investigation and prosecution team that has spent the past 18 months uncovering the web of scandal, fraud, bribery and corruption that silently choked the islands into their current condition. Although I appreciate that their task is complex, there have been no prosecutions. Given that the cost of the investigation is about $500,000 a month and that it is funded exclusively by the Turks and Caicos interim Government, people on the islands are understandably in uproar. It is in everyone’s interest that there should be prosecutions imminently, that the uncertainty is cleared up and that a line is drawn so that the territory can move forward. Clear and concise parameters must be set. The people of Turks and Caicos cannot be expected to entertain open-ended speculation about when the problems will be resolved.

Finally, the constitutional reform process is one of the more emotive problems. It has been met with fierce hostility by the “belonger” population and the political parties, which have conducted their own review. All I will say is that the Government need to remember that a political system cannot and should not be imposed on an unwilling population. Such reforms must be conducted in conjunction with the people—there is no other way to go about it in a modern democracy. The next election in the Turks and Caicos Islands has been announced for 2012. That deadline must be met so that democracy is restored to the people of the islands by that time at the very latest.

The perpetuation of the current situation is unthinkable. Turks and Caicos is in crisis and if immediate action is not taken by Her Majesty’s Government, the territory will continue to deteriorate. A letter dated 4 February 2010 from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to a resident on Grand Turk stated:

“Whilst UK Ministers are keenly aware that the TCI Government has severe difficulties in meeting the liabilities it has inherited from the previous administration and that significant challenges remain, they are of the view that it would be inappropriate for UK taxpayers money to be used to fill a deficit created by the financial mismanagement of the previous administration.”

That is an appalling and inexcusable stance. The people of the Turks and Caicos are British, too, and they deserve our support. The previous Government should be ashamed of how they handled the situation there, and of the relationship that they fostered with the overseas territories in general.

I can assure the House with certainty that the bill for the UK taxpayer will be far greater in the long run if urgent action is not taken now. I have every faith that our new Conservative-led government will do everything in their power to ensure that the current wrongs are righted and that the failings of the past are corrected. We need to deploy more civil servants from the UK to reform the TCI civil service and more police to crack down on crime, and we need to draw a line under prosecutions to ensure that the full weight of the law is brought down on those who were deceitful. We also need to ensure that more funds are made available to the TCI, and not simply to tide the islands over for a few more months. It must be enough to stimulate the economy back into action radically.

I speak frankly when I say that there is no use in a package of support that is aimed merely at maintaining the status quo. I recognise that in the current climate of austerity no decision on finance is taken lightly, but I put it to the Government that they have committed to giving millions of pounds in aid to foreign countries, and yet let poverty and despair be fostered on our very own soil. Her Majesty’s Government now have an ideal opportunity to change that in the Turks and Caicos, and with the right attitude and approach we can show our citizens overseas that they are not on the periphery of government and that no matter where one is in the world, British is British is British.

The Government need to show the global community that just because someone happens to live in a different time zone from London, it does not make them any less British. With that in mind, the people of the Turks and Caicos should be afforded the full support of the Government to ensure that they realise a secure and prosperous future. They will not be impressed by more rhetoric.

At this point, I wish to commend Her Majesty’s Government in Canada, who, despite having no responsibility for the Turks and Caicos, are sending over members of the Royal Canadian mounted police to help us rescue the situation. Should that not be our responsibility? It is, after all, a British territory, not a Canadian territory.

The people of the Turks and Caicos islands want to see fast and radical action from Her Majesty’s Government here in London to restore to their homeland the governance that one would expect for a British overseas territory, a territory of the Crown.

14:47

[The Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury (James Duddridge)]

It is a particular privilege to speak at the Dispatch Box on this important issue, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) for securing the debate. He has a long history of support not only for the proud and loyal Turks and Caicos Islands but for other overseas territories, an advocacy that I am sure he will continue not only as chairman of his all-party groups but as a senior member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Following his visit in August, he produced an interesting report on the Turks and Caicos Islands, which I have read in detail and reviewed with civil servants. I hope to address a number of points raised in that report as well as in the debate.

As my hon. Friend knows, this Government’s approach to the overseas territories is very different from that of our predecessors. We are proud of our shared history and value the territories as part of the wider British family. We want our relationship to be mutually beneficial and successful. We know there are many challenges, but our relationship is strong enough to tackle them as they arise. Our support for the islands is a good example of our new approach.

My hon. Friend referred to the islands as being our very own soil. We are committed to the principle that the overseas territories should have the first call on the UK’s aid budget. However, that cannot be in the form of unconditional handouts of UK taxpayers’ money. We are providing support in the Turks and Caicos Islands where it will have the most lasting benefit by, for example, funding advisers to develop the wide-ranging reforms that are needed, giving temporary financial support to help protect the islands from financial collapse, and funding the deployment of UK police officers. We are doing what we can to support the territory despite the financial crisis here in the UK. In exchange, we want the territory to manage its affairs as successfully and effectively as possible. In today’s world, that means sound public finances, with high-quality and accountable government and public services.

The Government will change how we handle overseas territories business. We plan to involve other relevant Departments in our new strategy. The FCO will continue to lead and co-ordinate the work of Her Majesty’s UK Government on the overseas territories, but there is a role for much wider and deeper engagement and commitment by other Government Departments and bodies in the UK. We have already adopted such an approach in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

We want to open doors between the territories and the UK. We want to see more co-operation between central and local government, and the public and private sectors, which my hon. Friend mentioned. We want to do more to support economic and commercial development in the territories. My hon. Friend is right to say that fostering such development is essential. However, we cannot ignore the importance of good governance and a strong, independent public service. That is in everybody’s interests and is crucial in returning the islands to prosperity. A very important part of that is public financial management, but there are other weaknesses, such as a lack of transparency, a failure to follow due process, and—frankly—poor performance by some public officials, which must be addressed.

An enormous amount of work has gone into the islands since the constitution was suspended in August 2009. Much progress has been made on tackling the considerable financial, economic and governance challenges that the Governor and the interim Government inherited. A team of UK-funded technical experts is working hard with the Turks and Caicos Islands public service. Together, they are making improvements across a wide range of areas for the benefit of the islands. The FCO has funded experts in fields such as immigration, Crown land, good governance, revenue and customs, constitutional and electoral reform, and very importantly, economic development, to which my hon. Friend referred. The Department for International Development has funded experts in public financial management, including a chief financial officer, who arrived in September.

However, as my hon. Friend pointed out, much remains to be done. The UK Government have monitored the work of the current Turks and Caicos Islands Government since the suspension of parts of the constitution in August 2009 and considered carefully the challenges that lie ahead. Taking those factors into account, in September, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Mr Bellingham), announced during his visit to the Turks and Caicos Islands that the UK Government did not want to postpone elections any longer than absolutely necessary, but that they could not, alas, be held in 2011. He said that before the end of this year, he would set out milestones that would need to be met before elections could take place, ensuring clarity for everyone involved, both here and on the islands. I expect him to come forward with those in the coming weeks.

The Under-Secretary made many recommendations in his recent report, and I should like to address those in the seven minutes remaining. The UK’s support for the Turks and Caicos Islands cannot take the form of unconditional handouts of UK public money. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Romford will agree that ultimately, we want the Turks and Caicos Islands to stand on their own two feet, but within the broader family.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development said in a written ministerial statement in July that DFID had decided to propose a temporary package of financial support to the islands. That support is conditional on the Government strengthening their capacity and systems to manage their public finances and balance their budget within the next three years, which is a very tough challenge, as we know from the ones that we face on the mainland.

The DFID-funded chief financial officer is heading this difficult work, and to address the immediate shortfall, the Department has provided short-term loans to the islands. That will help. Our aim remains to restore and firmly embed the principles of sound financial management, sustainable development and good governance, which will help to rebuild confidence in the Turks and Caicos Islands and their ability to manage their own affairs. A public sector reform adviser has been funded by DFID, but only arrived in the Turks and Caicos Islands this week. I am sure that that person will have a big impact. Also an immigration adviser has been seconded from the UK Border Agency, and is already making an impact. That secondment was funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The UKBA adviser has been there since September and is doing well.

The constitutional and electoral reform adviser published her latest recommendations on the Turks and Caicos Islands in mid-November, and the people of the islands have until 14 January next year to submit further comments on those recommendations. The political parties on the islands have been encouraged to participate in the consultation process, and I encourage them further in that, because it is incredibly important that all parties engage during these difficult times to produce the right solution, not just for the UK Government but for the people of those islands. Importantly, that consultation process will include an invitation from the Turks and Caicos Islands advisory council and the consultative forum to discuss their recommendations and those of the adviser.

In the light of the commission of inquiry’s recommendations, improvements will be made to a number of areas of the islands’ constitution. Some of the issues under consideration are more sensitive than others. For example, there will be a need for increased oversight by the Governor, whom my hon. Friend met—I am glad that the visit went well. He holds the Governor, who is doing a very good job, in high regard. However, there might be a need for increased oversight by the Governor in a new constitution. There is also the sticky issue of who will be able to vote in a forthcoming election, so we will have to consider the franchise in a lot more detail. There are a number of difficult issues, but there is no reason to duck them. The future stability and good governance of the Turks and Caicos Islands is at stake.

It is critical that we get the investigations right. The UK Government have agreed to provide the initial funding needed to set up a special investigation and prosecution team. The FCO funded the team from its creation in August 2009 until February 2010, at the significant cost of approximately £600,000. The cost of the team has now transferred, as my hon. Friend is aware, to the Turks and Caicos Islands Government, and the DFID-funded chief financial officer has included the cost of the team in her budget calculations.

My hon. Friend talked about the speed of prosecutions. That, quite properly, will be a matter for Helen Garlick and the Attorney-General, rather than the UK Government. I agree with my hon. Friend that there has been a worrying increase in violent crime on the islands—he witnessed it himself. Steps have been taken to increase the penalties for gun crime and increase the police presence on the islands, particularly on the main island of Providenciales. I am pleased to say that the FCO has funded the deployment of five Metropolitan police officers, in addition to the Canadian officers whom he has already mentioned. The Metropolitan police officers arrived last month and are working well with the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands police to review current unsolved cases of violent crime, including murder and armed robbery. The officers are also providing guidance and advice on lines of inquiry for intelligence and investigations.

My hon. Friend asked about prisons and radar. I will write to him on those subjects.

As I said at the start of my speech, the Government are taking a new approach to the overseas territories—an approach exemplified by the support that we are giving to the Turks and Caicos Islands. Much work has been done and much progress made, but I acknowledge that much more remains to be done. We will work with the Governor and all the other bodies to ensure that this happens. The UK Government and the current Turks and Caicos Islands Government, led by the Governor, will continue to work hard to ensure that the principles of good governance, sound financial management and sustainable development are firmly embedded across the public service and the wider society.

I commend my hon. Friend for his interest and support, which I am sure will continue, and which stands the Turks and Caicos Islands Government in very good stead. I promise to write to him with a full and proper reply on prisons, rather than rush one in the remaining time available to me at the Dispatch Box today.

Question put and agreed to.

15:00

House adjourned.