House of Commons
(12 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Prayers
(12 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Point of Order
(12 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
09:35 - The House divided: - Ayes: 5 / Noes: 99 - Question accordingly negatived.
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. May I ask for some advice? There are no more sitting Fridays for private Members’ Bills in this Session. Is it possible for the Backbench Business Committee to consider them if they are deferred today?
Mr Speaker
No, because the Standing Orders prevent that from happening. I hope that is helpful, even if it is disappointing.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
I beg to move, That the House sit in private.
Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 163).
Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wish to draw your attention to the fact that my Bill, the Public Bodies (Sustainable Food) Bill, is item No. 10 on the Order Paper. Given the difficulties faced by Members, who are elected, in being unable to get a sitting date for valid Bills that should be debated by the House, I wonder whether, when you visit the youth parliament in Kidsgrove, you could explain to young people in my constituency the archaic procedures of this House for getting proper legislation through.
Thomas Docherty
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am mindful of your advice to Ministers and I am sure that you will have seen today that the Deputy Prime Minister’s statutory register of lobbyists has been leaked to a large number of news outlets, rather than given to the House. Has the Deputy Prime Minister sought you out to offer a formal apology for that gross discourtesy?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) for that point of order. The short answer is no; no such conversation has taken place. What I say to the hon. Gentleman, whom I wish well for the weekend, is let us wait and see what Monday brings.
Daylight Saving Bill
(12 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
10:58 - The House having divided: - Ayes: 119 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly agreed to.
11:44 - The House having divided: - Ayes: 122 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly agreed to.
11:59 - The House having divided: - Ayes: 10 / Noes: 121 - Question accordingly negatived.
13:49 - The House having divided: - Ayes: 124 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly agreed to.
14:04 - The House having divided: - Ayes: 11 / Noes: 119 - Question accordingly negatived.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I beg to move amendment 59, page 1, line 3, leave out
‘the time for general purposes’
and insert
‘the period of summer time (within the meaning of the Summer Time Act 1972)’.
Mr Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 58, page 1, line 6, after ‘Ireland’, insert
‘specifically including the interests and concerns of the principal faith communities within the UK.’.
Amendment 3, page 1, line 9, leave out clause 2.
Amendment 63, in clause 2, page 1, line 11, after ‘group’, insert ‘of independent academic experts’.
Amendment 22, page 1, line 12, at end insert—
‘(1A) Membership of the Group must be ratified by a resolution of both Houses of Parliament.’.
Amendment 64, page 2, line 1, leave out subsection (4).
Amendment 65, page 2, line 3, leave out subsection (5).
Amendment 12, page 2, line 6, at end insert—
‘(6) Such terms of reference must include an investigation into the impact on energy consumption of advancing time by one hour.’.
Amendment 23, page 2, line 6, at end insert—
‘(b) Membership of the Independent Oversight Group must include at least one representative from each of the four nations of the United Kingdom.’.
Amendment 95, in clause 14, page 6, line 2, leave out ‘Daylight Saving’ and insert ‘European Time’.
Amendment 5, in clause 3, page 2, line 10, leave out subsection (2).
Amendment 25, page 2, line 14, leave out ‘18’ and insert ‘24’.
Amendment 60, in clause 4, page 2, line 19, leave out ‘the time for general purposes’ and insert
‘the period of summer time (within the meaning of the Summertime Act 1972)’.
Amendment 67, page 2, line 21, leave out ‘daylight saving’ and insert ‘summertime extension’.
Amendment 68, page 2, line 23, leave out ‘daylight saving’ and insert ‘summertime extension’.
Amendment 69, page 2, line 28, leave out ‘daylight saving’ and insert ‘summertime extension’.
Amendment 81, page 2, line 32, leave out ‘daylight saving’ and insert ‘summertime extension’.
Amendment 83, page 2, line 36, leave out ‘daylight saving’ and insert ‘summertime extension’.
Amendment 84, page 2, line 40, leave out ‘daylight saving’ and insert ‘summertime extension’.
Amendment 89, in clause 5, page 3, line 10, leave out ‘daylight saving’ and insert ‘summertime extension’.
Amendment 90, in clause 6, page 3, line 12, leave out ‘daylight saving’ and insert ‘summertime extension’.
Amendment 91, page 3, line 19, leave out ‘daylight saving’ and insert ‘summertime extension’.
Amendment 71, in clause 8, page 3, line 34, leave out ‘daylight saving’ and insert ‘summertime extension’.
Amendment 72, in clause 9, page 4, line 4, leave out ‘time’ and insert ‘summertime’.
Amendment 76, in clause 11, page 4, line 25, leave out ‘daylight saving’ and insert ‘summertime extension’.
Amendment 61, in clause 12, page 4, line 35, leave out subsection (1).
Amendment 79, page 5, line 37, leave out subsection (8).
Amendment 93, in clause 14, page 6, line 2, leave out ‘daylight saving’ and insert ‘summertime extension’.
Mr Chope
I wish to introduce a discussion on amendment 59 and the other 27 amendments, from Members on all sides of the House, that you have included in this group, Mr Speaker. Before I outline the reasoning behind amendment 59, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) on having steered her first private Member’s Bill so far. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] As you know, Mr Speaker, I have been in this House for some 23 years and have never got a private Member’s Bill as far as my hon. Friend has, so she is to be congratulated. I did not oppose the Bill on Second Reading, because I hoped that I would be able to change it through amendment, should the opportunity arise. That is the background to where we are today.
Amendment 59 is born of two deep-seated political convictions that I hold. First, I believe passionately in the Union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. That means that I support a single currency for the Union, the pound sterling, and a single time zone. I am a Conservative, as well. In other words, I do not support change unless there is an overwhelming case for making it.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
My hon. Friend says that he is a passionate supporter of the Union, but another strong union is the United States, yet it has different time zones.
Mr Chope
I will not be drawn into having a discussion about the United States, because the Bill is fairly and squarely about the United Kingdom, a far superior country to the United States. I am not unfamiliar with the fact that there are countries with more than one time zone. Last weekend I was in Kazakhstan, which has two time zones and, as my hon. Friend will know, is the ninth largest country in the world.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
It is worth pointing out that the coming power of the next century, China, has only the one time zone, and as we know from Noel Coward, China’s very big.
Mr Chope
Absolutely, Mr Speaker, and of course the other amendments in this group.
I believe that the original proposals in the Bill were contentious, divisive and essentially selfish. The rewriting of the Bill in Committee, at the behest of the Government, has made it clear that we can have only one time zone in the United Kingdom, which I think is a welcome measure of support for the Union. However, the Bill’s Achilles heel is that it has been redrafted in such a way that it would enable the United Kingdom Government to change the time zone in Scotland without the consent of the Scottish Parliament. We know that the Scottish Parliament, and MPs representing Scottish constituencies, do not support a change that would make winter mornings in Scotland even colder and darker than they are already.
Mr Tom Harris (Glasgow South) (Lab)
For the record, I am here this morning to support the hon. Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris), and I spoke in a general debate in favour of the change the year before last.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
To support the hon. Gentleman’s assertion, I point out that I was on a radio programme on BBC Radio Scotland a number of months ago on which there was a balance of contributions on daylight saving. However, the overwhelming majority of callers to the programme were against the move.
Mr Chope
If that is so, and I am sure it is, we are in danger of embarking on a course that will waste an enormous amount of public money and Government time. The Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr Davey), said in Committee that a trial involving advancing all the clocks in the UK by one hour would not proceed
“if there was clear opposition from any part of the country.”––[Official Report, Daylight Saving Public Bill Committee, 7 December 2011; c. 4.]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Edward Davey)
indicated assent.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
I am terribly worried, because I normally agree with my hon. Friend, but he says that Scotland has a right of veto, and I want to know who speaks for England. Does England have an opportunity to have its own view heard as well?
Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)
I am a little disturbed that the debate is already going down the England-Scotland route. There is a Welsh dimension to it, and there is a UK dimension to the whole thing. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that tourism and road safety are just as important in Wales as in other parts of the United Kingdom?
Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman said earlier what a strong and passionate advocate of the Union he was. Should not this United Kingdom Parliament therefore determine the time zone for the whole United Kingdom?
Mr Chope
I agree, and that is exactly what we are doing, but my concern is that if this Parliament changes the time zone for the United Kingdom against the wishes of the people of Scotland, it will give extra ammunition to those people in Scotland who are campaigning for independence. We would be playing into their hands if we forced the Bill through.
Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
Is not the reality that we should have a review and see what the predominant opinion and the strongest arguments are on this important issue? If the general mood right across the UK is that we should have a change, and that sports clubs and tourism should have the advantages that it would bring, surely we should not be denied a review simply because of the views of a small number of people.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the debates on the matter in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England ought to be based on the research of Mayer Hillman, whose booklet “Time for Change” points out that some of those who would gain the most are in Scotland?
Mr Chope
It is easy for people to assert, in a rather patronising way, that a particular measure will benefit people in Scotland, but on Second Reading some hon. Members representing Scottish constituencies expressed a completely different view. I would prefer to trust their assessment of their constituents’ wishes than rely upon some academic treatise, which I am afraid to tell my hon. Friend I have not yet had the opportunity to look at.
Mr MacNeil
If there is any perception of high-handedness from Westminster, last week’s figure of 1,000 new members of the Scottish National party will probably be dwarfed. That, of course, was through www.snp.org/join.
Mr Chope
The hon. Gentleman and I are on the same side on this issue, and I am not totally unfamiliar with Scotland because I had the privilege of spending four years as a university undergraduate there. I remember those cold mornings, as a keen undergraduate, getting up early and facing the stiff east wind in the dark. I understand and feel for the people in Scotland who are faced with the prospect of having even darker mornings.
Mr Tom Harris
The hon. Gentleman is making the point that evidence should be discarded and the personal opinions of individual Members should be set on a higher level. Is he not in favour of evidence-based policy making? The Bill would allow the evidence for or against a change to be seen after a trial period. If the result of the trial was that my constituents were going to be put in greater danger, of course I would oppose a permanent change at the end of the trial. Is he not in the same position?
Mr Chope
My difficulty is that there is nothing to prevent the Government from commissioning an inquiry and getting the evidence that would enable the hon. Gentleman to reach a decision on this contentious issue. I cannot understand why, if the Government support the Bill, they have not already embarked on getting a body of evidence together. That evidence could then be presented to the House and we could decide whether we thought, in the light of that evidence, that we should make any changes to the clocks. I will refer to that in a bit more detail later.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
Well, there is some evidence, is there not? One might say that as a London MP I would say that, but the Greater London authority’s economic experts have suggested that the UK economy would benefit by about £1 billion in all regions, not just in London. There is already some evidence.
Mr Chope
Certainly there is, and my hon. Friend refers to it, but I believe that the Government and the promoter of the Bill accept that there is not enough evidence on which to take a decision. The Government are saying they need to gather more evidence, which suggests that the evidence to which my hon. Friend refers is not sufficient for either the promoter of the Bill or the Government.
Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is evidence that upwards of 80,000 new jobs could come from the Bill, if it were implemented? Given the state of the economy, is it not crucial that when we have an opportunity, at little cost, to create new jobs, the House should support it?
Mr Chope
I am probably more in favour of developing new jobs in the economy through enterprise and competition than many other Members. My reading of the evidence so far is that those new jobs would come mainly from tourism. My amendment 59, which would confine the experiment to extending British summer time by 1 hour rather than interfering with Greenwich mean time in the winter, would address the area that has the greatest potential benefit and which is most likely to increase the number of jobs.
Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)
Surely the hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that tourism stops in the winter in great cities such as London, York and Edinburgh.
Mr Chope
No, I am not suggesting that at all. I am not suggesting that money is only to be made out of tourism during daylight hours. Indeed, there is a lot of tourism in London in the night time economy that is very beneficial to the country’s economy. I see my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) in his place. He will know that the night time economy in Bournemouth is also flourishing and thriving. That is not dependent on having this Bill on the statute book.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
Is not another piece of evidence the fact that about £138 million a year could be saved in the NHS by reducing the number of road casualties?
Fiona Bruce
Apparently the figure comes from the Department for Transport’s estimates.
Mr Chope
As a former Transport Minister, far be it from me to criticise the Department for Transport. I have to say, though, that most of the alleged benefits—by which I mean the reduction in the numbers of road casualties—would occur in Scotland, but given that road safety is, as I understand it, a devolved matter, if the Scottish Parliament wishes to take action to improve road safety, including by doing something along the lines suggested in the Bill, surely it must be a matter for the Scottish Parliament. I am conscious that on Second Reading mention was made of the fact that during the last experiment in the north of Scotland, notwithstanding changes being made to drink-driving laws and so on, the number of road casualties actually increased.
Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
One of the most significant factors is that over the past year the number of road accidents in Scotland has fallen. Had we passed the Bill on its First Reading, we might have misattributed that reduction to the effects of daylight. In actual fact, however, road accidents have far less to do with the amount of daylight than with other factors, such as how people drive and the weather conditions, for example. I urge caution over some of that evidence.
Mr Chope
The hon. Lady’s words are very wise. My experience as road safety Minister in the Department for Transport leads me to believe that we must be careful not to draw the wrong conclusions from experiments. My view is that a stronger law on drug-driving would have a significant impact on road safety in our country. But that is not a debate for this morning.
Sir Peter Bottomley
The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) is right to say that the number of road deaths fell from 5,600 a year in 1986 to 1,850 in Great Britain last year. The point is that when we change our clocks back, the number of deaths rises—that happens regardless of the underlying level. If we are seriously interested in cutting the number of unnecessary deaths, we have to go for this review, including for the winter, but, as I understand it, my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) is suggesting that we do not include winter in the review.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend’s reading of my amendment is absolutely right. We have already had a review of the winter, in the ’60s and early ’70s, but we never had a review of what happens in the summer. I therefore think that the priority should be to have a review of the summer.
Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)
My hon. Friend refers to a past review but he knows the figures and he knows perfectly well that it demonstrated conclusively that there was a reduction in the number of road traffic accidents.
Sir Peter Bottomley
The answer is simple: the politicians lost their nerve. The small increase in the morning was heavily outweighed by the reduction in the afternoons and evenings, yet the minority effect was taken as the majority one. That is the kind of thing that can happen outside the House, but it should not happen inside. We should pay attention to the majority arguments. Had we accepted the review, we would never have gone back to what we have now, which has cost us 20,000 deaths and injuries in the past 30 years.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend states that the politicians lost their nerve. I do not know whether that is correct, but surely the important thing is that the House, with the combined political wisdom of all its Members, ultimately takes the decision. Instead of leaving it, as the Bill does, to the Government to introduce an order—albeit one that would have to be approved by the affirmative procedure —the Government should introduce a Bill having first gathered the evidence. That way we could vote on the Bill in an informed way.
Bob Stewart
Let us be quite clear. If there is evidence, as there seems to be, that changing how we run our clocks will save lives—according to the London estimate, it would mean six fewer deaths and 23 fewer severe injuries a year—we have a duty to consider how we manage our time. That is our responsibility as a Parliament.
Mr Chope
I do not wish to criticise my hon. Friend in public but he will know that the outstanding Mayor of London introduced facilities to encourage more cycling in London. It is possible to argue, from the figures that I have seen, that as a consequence there have been more injuries and deaths among London cyclists, but I do not think that my hon. Friend would argue that we should ban cycling in London just because it might save lives.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. May I say how much we are enjoying the oration from my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour? It does seem, however, to be taking on the feeling of a Second Reading—
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman should resume his seat. I say to him for the avoidance of doubt that were the debate taking that shape, I would intervene to prevent it, but it has not yet done so. I am grateful to him for his solicitous concern for the debate but he can happily leave it with me.
Mr MacNeil
These comments about the numbers of road deaths and accidents are misleading. The graph on deaths in the mid to late ’60s shows their number falling before and during the trial but falling more steeply after it. It is possible to argue, therefore, that the trial delayed the downward glide of the number of road fatalities and that there are people who died during that period who might not have done had we not had those three years of dark winter mornings.
Mr John Leech (Manchester, Withington) (LD)
Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that most accidents happen during the period of the day that would benefit most from the change in time zones?
Mr Chope
I am afraid that I do not accept that. One specious statistic that has been mentioned suggests that more accidents involving children occur between 3 and 6 o’clock in the afternoon than between 7 and 10 in the morning. Of course, most children are at school from 8.30 am onwards, so between 8.30 and 10 am there are hardly any children around, whereas schools break up for the day earlier than they used to, so there is a lot more activity on the road among children between 3 and 6 o’clock. To compare the morning period to the afternoon period simplistically is not intellectually correct.
Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that as the results of the previous review are disputed, and as this debate keeps turning into a debate about the evidence either way, there is even more need for a proper review with proper evidence that we can then debate? My hon. Friend speaks eloquently, and I hope one day to be able to emulate his eloquence, but is it not the case that the more we talk about the issue, the more we risk yet again denying the British public the opportunity to hear this debate balanced in evidence?
The subject has come back to the House again and again. This is possibly less a debate about the pros and cons of daylight saving than it is a debate about whether internal process gets in the way of getting things done for the people outside the House.
Mr Chope
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but I will not be seduced by her generous comments. A review to collect, examine and analyse the evidence can be undertaken by the Government now, without the need for any legislation. If she thinks that that should be done—I agree that it would be extremely helpful—it could be done without the Bill, if the Government had the will to do something about it. That is why I have other concerns about how the Bill is drafted.
Sir Peter Bottomley
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. We understand your response to my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), but my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) now appears to be saying that we do not need the Bill. In my experience, that is not properly a matter for debate on an amendment.
Mr Speaker
The answer is that passing reference by the hon. Member for Christchurch to his view on the merits or demerits of the Bill is in order, but dilation on that matter is not. For that reason, I think that the hon. Member for Christchurch would be well advised to take a gentle hint and focus on amendment 59, which gives a man of his experience, ingenuity and indefatigability considerable scope in any case.
Mr Chope
I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, and to my hon. Friend for his point of order. For the sake of clarification, I was suggesting that the part of the Bill calling for the collection of evidence is not necessary, but we can develop those arguments in due course if there are amendments pertinent to it.
The most important thing is that I should make some progress. I have not made much, owing to the number of interventions and the amount of interest in this group of amendments. There is opposition to such a change in Scotland; I can see that there is some support as well. In the past year, the Government have basically done nothing in relation to the Bill since Second Reading. They have not considered the evidence. If they had, we might not need to allow up to 18 months for the proposed inquiry. At the moment, the Government suggest that it could take 18 months rather than one year. My amendment would reduce the scope of that inquiry, thereby reducing the costs and enabling progress to be made more quickly. Those who want progress will see merit in amendment 59, because it would focus the scope of any inquiry.
Mr MacNeil
The effect of darkness has been asserted in the Chamber. In fact, the most dangerous hour on the road is 3 o’clock in the afternoon, which is in daylight all the time. Another point to bear in mind is that since the trial, the fatality rate has dropped from about 7,500 a year to below 2,500 a year. The improvements in road safety have been due to a number of other factors. Daylight does not seem to be as big a factor as some Members would have us believe.
Mr Chope
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point.
I must get back to the amendments. I believe that most of the opposition to the Bill is based on concern about moving away from Greenwich mean time in the winter: that is, from the last weekend in October to the last weekend in March. Those five months have the least daylight, and rebalancing the clock to achieve an extra hour of daylight in the evening can occur only at the expense of losing daylight at the time when most people are starting their day and going to work or school. Most support for the Bill—certainly as evidenced by the small number of my constituents who have written to me—is due to the fact that it would give longer evenings between April and October.
If one accepts those two propositions, it seems sensible to focus on extending British summer time rather than interfering with the application of Greenwich mean time. It would be lighter later throughout the summer and during much of the spring and autumn, satisfying those who want more time to play outdoor sport in the evenings. I have had representations from people who play bowls in Christchurch. People who play cricket or tennis, or who indulge in golf, sailing or surfing would also benefit from lighter evenings, because they do not normally want to get up early in the morning to participate in those activities.
Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)
I have received a number of representations from constituents who are clear that they want to enjoy an extra hour of sport during the whole year. That would be delivered if, as many of us in the House want, the clocks were changed all year round.
Mr Chope
With the greatest respect, I do not believe that that could be achieved unless we created more daylight. There is a finite amount of daylight in the winter months. If we reduce the amount of daylight in the mornings and increase it in the evenings, people will still have little time to participate in sport during the working day.
Angie Bray
Nobody seeks to play sport at 7.30 in the morning. They are more likely to do so at 4 in the afternoon. That is precisely what they would be able to do if we were to make that change.
Mr Chope
Again, it is dangerous to generalise. I do not know about you, Mr Speaker, but some Members of the House go jogging at 7.30 in the morning. It would be wrong to suggest that they should be excluded from our discussions. At the moment, at 7.30 in the morning, daylight is just about breaking in London, but if the Bill were passed and the clocks were changed, they would be jogging in darkness.
Mr Speaker
Order. Just before the hon. Gentleman gives way, and pursuant to the intervention that he has just taken, I know that in focusing on amendment 59 and the amendments with which it is grouped, he will want to turn his remarks to the preparation of the report on the costs and benefits of the time zone.
Hugh Bayley
There are 50 Members in the Chamber at the moment, all of whom have views on the Bill and many of whom, like me, support it. The hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) has been speaking for more than half an hour. Does he believe that his views are more important than those of the rest of us in the Chamber, or will he sit down to give others the opportunity to speak as well?
Mr Chope
The hon. Gentleman says that I have been speaking for all that time. Actually, I have not. Much of that time has been given to other people who have sought to intervene. As a matter of courtesy, I have allowed those interventions, in the same way that I allowed his. I hope that he will not misrepresent the situation and give a false impression.
Hugh Bayley
I most certainly would not want to misrepresent the hon. Gentleman’s views, but the question is simple: is he going to allow time for other Members to speak?
Mr Chope
I hope there will be plenty of time for other Members to speak. That is why I want to make more progress in discussing these amendments. The hon. Gentleman, who is a member of the Panel of Chairs, knows the rules of procedure and knows that this amendment has been selected along with other amendments, so it is reasonable that we should discuss it and others in the group. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is not supporting the principle of the tyranny of the majority. This House has made its reputation among the democracies of the world on the basis that it allows the minority to have their say. I believe that that is an important fundamental principle.
Hugh Bayley
It is a simple question: is the hon. Gentleman trying to talk out this Bill or does he believe that others should be able to express their views, as they have the same right to speak as he enjoys?
Mr Chope
It is basically the luck of the draw. If an hon. Member’s amendment is selected as the lead amendment in a group, it is obviously that hon. Member’s responsibility to speak to that amendment and conduct a debate around it. [Interruption.] I think this is developing into a rather puerile discussion.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
There are 28 amendments in this group. If my hon. Friend were to devote just five minutes to discussing each one, it would take two hours and 20 minutes. Surely that is what we want—a proper discussion of all the issues, amendment by amendment.
Sir Peter Bottomley
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s response to my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), because the attitude of the latter was the kind of thing that helped to delay the abolition of slavery for generations and stopped Samuel Plimsoll from getting a white line painted on ships to make sure that they did not turn over because they were overladen. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch is right; he should get on.
Mr Chope
Let me summarise what I think is the strength of the argument for amendment 59. It would ensure that the change applied only to seven months of the year, so it would take less time and cost less to prepare and publish a report, for which clause 1 provides. The straight pro rata saving would be, on my calculation, about 40% in time and cost—well worth while in an age of austerity. The savings should be even greater, because the most contentious area of inquiry would not have to be addressed—namely, the costs and benefits of advancing GMT by one hour in the winter across the whole of the United Kingdom.
Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)
I have received many representations from the tourism sector in Thanet. My hon. Friend talks about reducing Greenwich mean time, but would it not be much simpler to do this universally right across the year? How many representations has my hon. Friend had from his tourism sector locally? As I say, I have had a huge number of them and he represents a similar coastal community.
Mr Chope
I am sure that I represent a similar coastal community, but I have to tell my hon. Friend that I am not aware of having received a single representation from the tourism industry, although I have had a number from constituents, some of whom, for all I know, might be involved in the tourism industry. I have written back to all such constituents and explained that I was concerned about the integrity of the Union and believed that many of their concerns could be addressed by looking at having an extension to British summer time while leaving GMT unchanged.
Mr Ellwood
I am sorry that my hon. Friend has not had an opportunity to speak to tourism operators in his constituency. He will know that his constituency is next door to mine, and I have had a chance to visit the tourism operators in his constituency. I apologise for not letting him know in advance, but they were and are very much in favour of this Bill. I add that we are supposed to be debating the report and that people’s attitude to my hon. Friend’s idea of not moving the clocks in winter but only in summer could be discovered when people react to the Government’s request for information when the report is put together. My hon. Friend’s amendment and request are, in effect, already in the Bill as it stands.
Mr Chope
I am almost lost for words. My hon. Friend has come into my constituency on I do not know how many occasions to talk to I know not which businesses about the Bill. I hope that he told them that their prime responsibility should be to communicate with me as the Member for Christchurch rather than through him as the Member for Bournemouth. East. Be that as it may, I have yet to hear from these businesses. They might be run by people who are resident in my hon. Friend’s constituency, so I have no problem with that. With the greatest respect, my hon. Friend misunderstands the purpose of amendment 59, which is to bring some focus and simplicity to this issue by concentrating on the summer months rather than complicating matters by including GMT.
Mr MacNeil
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that tourism is more a function of temperature and that it dies down in the winter months because it is colder? If any group of people can get up an hour earlier, take advantage of the entirety of the daylight and are free to do so it those who go on holiday. On holiday, we can choose when we go to bed and when we get up without reference to an employer or anybody else.
Mr Chope
The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful and persuasive point—one that I must admit I had not considered. He makes a worthwhile addition to our deliberations on this aspect of the Bill.
Before moving on to other amendments in the group, I urge the Minister to give his unqualified support to Government research on the potential costs and benefits of my proposal in the event of this Bill not reaching the statute book this Session. The Government do not need legislation or even the authority of the House to prepare a report. I have noted a certain reluctance on the part of the Government to engage in the lively debate consequent on the introduction of this Bill. If the Government are supportive of the Bill, as amended at their insistence in Committee, why have they not already produced or started work on producing a report from experts? I shall not be rude to the Government by suggesting that they have been sitting on the fence and wanting to have it both ways. That is not my nature, but I think that the Government and the Minister have to answer a number of questions about this matter.
At the behest of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), let me turn briefly to some of the other amendments in the group. Amendment 58, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) and others, picks up a concern articulated in Committee that the Bill’s proposals could impact particularly adversely on faith communities. The amendment would require the Secretary of State to have specific regard to
“the interests and concerns of the principal faith communities”
in the UK. It seems a perfectly sensible amendment to me, as I would expect any amendment by my hon. Friend to be. If amendment 59 were carried, however, I believe that many of the concerns of faith communities such as Orthodox Jews would be addressed in any case because their concerns are centred principally around having darker mornings rather than lighter summer evenings. I recognise that amendment 59 would not satisfy amateur astronomers who would have to stay up even later to get a good view of the stars, but it would address the concerns underlying amendment 58.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
In fact, many astronomical phenomena take place early in the morning, so it might not be so clear cut for astronomers as my hon. Friend believes.
Mr Andrew Smith
We all respect the convictions of religious minorities and the obligations imposed on their members, but is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that more weight should be given to them than to the views of the rest of the population?
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley will be able to answer that question, because it relates to his amendment. I certainly think that the representations of mainstream religious organisations—the reference is to the mainstream, rather than to any quirky group—should be taken into account.
Mr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making an eloquent speech and is listening to all sections of opinion within the House. Does he agree that we should consider not only economic issues and concerns, but quality and well-being issues, such as the impact that the Bill would have on people’s religious observance, which many of my constituents have contacted me about?
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend makes a good point—of course he is a signatory to amendment 58 and he made the same point in Committee. This is about not only collecting evidence, but evaluating that evidence using the relevant criteria, including those to which he refers. That is probably one reason why he has misgivings about aspects of this Bill, as do a number of other hon. Members.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
As my amendment was mentioned, I am anxious to ensure that it is not misrepresented. Does my hon. Friend agree that it does not say that the concerns of those faith groups should take precedence over everybody else’s view? The amendment merely asks that regard be given to their concerns when a decision is taken.
Mr Chope
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point.
Amendment 3 stands in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset and I look forward to hearing his speech in support of it. The amendment proposes to leave out clause 2, and I may well share the scepticism of my hon. Friends who have supported that amendment, because they obviously feel that the Bill would be better if it made no reference to what is described as the “Independent Oversight Group”.
One thing seems to be absolutely clear: this so-called “Independent Oversight Group” will not be independent of the Government. Its members will be chosen by the Secretary of State, who will be able to remove them on a whim, and subsection (3) provides that they will not even be entitled to have all their expenses defrayed, because instead of using the word “must” the Bill refers only to “may” in this regard. They will not be allowed to choose their own terms of reference and they will have to do as they are told by the Secretary of State, even to the extent that he will be able to order them not to publish their advice quickly. They might produce their report quickly, but the clause means that the Secretary of State will be able to say to them that they should not produce the report based on their findings until a given time, perhaps closer to a year or 18 months after they had been asked to start their work. So I can understand the scepticism.
My hon. Friends the Members for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) and I have tabled the more modest amendment 63, which would require the independent group to be comprised of “independent academic experts”. We did so not because we believed that a group of independent academics is necessarily best suited to this task, but because the Minister promised in Committee that the group would be so limited and the amendment would prevent him from changing his mind later. The amendment would also provide the opportunity to probe him further as to how and why he believes that independent academic experts are the best people to advise on a report on the potential costs and benefits.
I have been campaigning for a long time for the Government to carry out work and produce a comprehensive report on the costs and benefits of UK membership of the European Union. I find it interesting that although the Government resolutely refuse to do that, they are prepared to contemplate such an inquiry into the costs and benefits of changing the time zones within this country.
Mr MacNeil
Did the hon. Gentleman fear, as I did when I heard the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) talk about sharing a time zone with Europe, creeping Euro-harmonisation, which perhaps would not be helpful at all in this instance?
Mr Chope
I am much more in favour of harmony than harmonisation, particularly on the European Union.
Amendment 22, which again stands in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley, states:
“Membership of the Group must be ratified by a resolution of both Houses of Parliament.”
It introduces a modest safeguard to try to ensure that the group is truly independent. What could be wrong with this House having an opportunity to ratify the membership of the group or to table amendments to remove individual members from or add them to it?
Philip Davies
Given the slightly different tack that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) and I have taken in our amendments, does my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) feel that if my amendment were accepted, the necessary safeguards would be in place and he would then be happy for the independent oversight group to take shape?
Mr Chope
It would go some way to addressing the problem, but what the amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset bears out is that there is a certain amount of scepticism about whether the “Independent Oversight Group” will actually be independent. Giving this House the opportunity to ratify the membership or otherwise might obviously provide some safeguard, but this is not my preferred approach. If amendment 22 was, however, incorporated in the Bill, a Select Committee could perhaps try to get involved in the process and interview the people who were going to be cited on the Order Paper as appointments needing ratification by this House.
Philip Davies
But if we accepted amendments that made this group genuinely independent, surely that would be better than having no independent oversight group at all.
Mr Chope
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend about that.
Amendment 64 stands in my name and those of my hon. Friends the Members for Wellingborough and for Gainsborough. It proposes to omit subsection (4) from clause 2—this is the subsection that, above all, constrains the activities of the so-called “Independent Oversight Group”. From the Government’s perspective, the group can be independent, provided that it does as the Government say—I shall try to illustrate that with two specific examples. Under this subsection, the Secretary of State could prevent the group from examining separately the issues of whether to have experiments advancing the clocks by one hour: in the summer alone, in the winter alone, or across the whole year. Why do the Government insist on holding the whip hand? Another example of what could happen unless subsection (4) is removed is that the Government could prevent the publication of any minority report from the group. They could suppress dissent, because although the group might contain people who took a different view from the majority, the Government would be able to use their powers to say, “You are not allowed to produce a minority report.”
Sir Peter Bottomley
I often think that I understand what is going on. I thought that the oversight group was supposed to look at methodologies—the sort of thing for dry statisticians, rather than for people with strong personal views about what the outcome should be.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend is right, as that was what was said in Committee. If one closely reads the Bill, however, one sees that it does not say that at all. It gives the impression that the oversight group might be able to give some advice on policy rather than just being a group of technocrats, but that is not what the Minister said in Committee. My hon. Friend is right to recall that in Committee we were told that this would be a technical group, but that is not what is on the face of the Bill. As a very experienced legislator, he knows that we must judge things on the basis of what is in the Bill rather than on what the Government say they intend. That is the background.
Amendment 65, which was again tabled by me and by my hon. Friends the Members for Wellingborough and for Gainsborough would leave out clause 2(5). The subsection is a major constraint on the independence of the group. It appears from what the Minister said in Committee that the Government want the group to establish facts but not to give too much, if any, advice to the Government. If the Government are choosing and controlling the membership of the group, however, why are they not willing to trust its members to behave responsibly and bring forward a comprehensive report of their own choosing? It is very difficult to find the best people to serve on independent groups, but it will be much more difficult to get the best people on to this group if they know that they are joining a group that will not be independent and that they will not be able to use their judgment because they are always beholden to the Government, who will be looking over their shoulder. Leaving out that subsection would enhance the independence of the group.
Amendment 12, tabled by the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid), would require the terms of reference to include an investigation into the impact on energy consumption of advancing time by one hour. One might assume that such an investigation would be essential if the group were to produce a definitive report on the potential costs and benefits. The amendment, however, exposes the fact that the Secretary of State could specifically prevent the group from looking into such a matter. Some might say that I am being unduly suspicious of the Government and might ask what possible motive there could be for their doing that, but we know from the experience in Indiana that, with darker mornings, more energy was consumed than was offset by the reduction in energy use in the lighter evenings. I see that the hon. Gentleman is nodding in agreement.
Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman mentions an important point about the Indiana study, and there was also a study in this country. The Building Research Establishment conducted some modelling in 2005 and found that advancing the time by one hour would increase energy consumption and CO2 emissions by 2%. That is why the investigation into the energy consumption is extremely important.
Bob Stewart
I accept that point, but my hon. Friend must also accept that there is other evidence. For example, in London, there will be an annual reduction of 80,000 tonnes of CO2 and energy savings of £20 million a year. We do not know the facts, which is all the more reason why we should have a trial to find them out as best we can.
Mr Chope
In that case, my hon. Friend will obviously be very supportive of amendment 12. It would ensure that the facts to which he has just referred would have to be examined by the independent panel. I am sure that our hon. Friend—if we can call him that as a member of the coalition—the Member for Argyll and Bute would be very supportive of the view taken by my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). I hope that amendment 12 will find favour with the Government and with the promoter of the Bill.
That brings me to amendment 23, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley, which would require the independent oversight group to have at least one member from each of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. That seems eminently sensible, because what can the Bill’s promoter or the Government have against having somebody from each of the four nations of the United Kingdom represented on the group?
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Will my hon. Friend assure me that if that amendment were passed, the representative from England would come from Somerset?
Mr Chope
I should have anticipated my hon. Friend’s intervention; I am sure that the Government would wish to receive representations and would be very sympathetic towards representations along those lines. Let us hope that that is so. As somebody who spent quite a lot of my late childhood in Cornwall, I think it would also be useful to have a representative from England who came from the far south-west, as the circumstances there are rather different from those in what might be described as the soft south-east. I do not know what, if anything, the Government have against the amendment. I know that in Committee it was proposed that the independent panel should have three experts from each of the four nations comprising the United Kingdom. This amendment is modest in comparison, but it introduces a worthwhile safeguard to ensure that any report is fully informed by the perspective of all parts of the United Kingdom.
Amendment 95, tabled by my hon. Friends the Members for Shipley, for Hendon (Mr Offord) and for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) and others, addresses the same issue as amendment 58 in slightly different language. The amendment talks about the impact and effect on the practices of the mainstream faith groups in the United Kingdom. It is a very sensible amendment although, as with amendment 58, if my amendment 59 were agreed, it would be redundant.
Amendment 5, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset and supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley, me and my hon. Friends the Members for Wellingborough and for Gainsborough, would leave out clause 3(2). Clause 3(1) requires the Secretary of State to publish the report of the independent oversight group within one year of Royal Assent, but subsection (2) gives the group a possible additional six months. Why? Why do they need an additional six months? If amendment 59 were accepted, the group would have less work to do but, in any event, surely one year is long enough for its work. If the group's members know that they have a chance of extending their work by another six months, they might be tempted to do so, but they should get down to the work they are being asked to do. In this country, we have a tendency to delay and delay and to think that that is a solution to our problems. As I said earlier, last weekend I was in Kazakhstan, where they have built a new city of 800,000 people in less than 15 years. If they can do that in 15 years, why will it take more than a year for this group to consider such a modest issue? We tolerate delay to far too great an extent and if we want to get on with this, we should get on with it—I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point, who is promoting the Bill, would agree—for better or for worse. We should not, however, use the delaying tactic.
That brings me to amendment 25. I am rushing through these amendments, but I think it is important to address them. Sometimes, the people who are impatient to take the debate forward try to move a closure motion, which means that Members with amendments in the lead group do not have a chance to speak about them before there is an attempt to curtail such debate by using the procedures of the House. What I am doing by going through these amendments seriatim is giving those who tabled them the opportunity to expand on them if they so wish. In any event, I am ensuring that the full nature and extent of the amendments is officially on the record so that if the Bill goes to the other place for debate, those who pick up these issues there will be able to look at the report of today’s proceedings and decide which, if any, of the amendments find favour with them.
Amendment 25 would leave out “18” and insert “24” in line 14 of subsection 2(b). This is the only one of the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley with which I do not agree. I think it contradicts absolutely amendment 5, which he has also signed.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend is right that it does, but the time scale for the independent oversight group surely depends on its terms of reference. The amendment was tabled in case the terms of reference were extended in the way I have requested, considering the impact on other faith groups, and the way the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid) mentioned, considering energy consumption. If those amendments were accepted, the group would need longer to consider those issues, but if they were not accepted, the shorter period of time that my hon. Friend mentioned earlier would be more than acceptable.
Mr Chope
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for explaining the thinking behind amendment 25.
On the amendments relating to clause 4, amendment 60, is consequential on amendment 59. Clause 4 gives the Secretary of State the power to make an order advancing the time in the United Kingdom throughout the year by one hour. Following on from my lead amendment 59, amendment 60 would restrict that power to advancing summer time alone by one hour.
Amendment 67, in my name and those of my hon. Friends the Members for Wellingborough and for Gainsborough, would change the name of such an order from a “daylight saving” order to a “summertime extension” order. That wording would promote both accuracy and transparency. Frankly, I object strongly to the expression “daylight saving” because it is against nature to be able to save daylight. I think the Bill’s promoter is effectively committing daylight robbery of the English language in using that expression.
Sir Peter Bottomley
Was it not the expression that Sir Winston Churchill used when he brought in daylight saving during the war?
Mr Chope
The expression might have been used by that distinguished former leader of our country during wartime, but we know that in a wartime atmosphere people sometimes use expressions that are designed to raise morale but that might not be 100% in line with the English language. If that was what happened, and I have no reason to doubt my hon. Friend, that is probably what caused Sir Winston Churchill to lapse into that sort of language, which is not appropriate in legislation. I do not think my hon. Friend is suggesting that Sir Winston Churchill had that language incorporated in a piece of legislation.
That brings me to a group of 11 amendments that are identical to amendment 67, but I would be trying the patience of the House if I did anything other than say that those amendments—to lines 23, 28, 32, 36 and 40 of clause 4, to line 10 of clause 5, to lines 12 and 19 of clause 6, to line 34 of clause 8, to line 25 of clause 11 and to line 2 of clause 14—all change the wording from “daylight saving” to “summertime extension”.
Amendment 72 in clause 9, line 4, would delete “time” and insert “summertime”. Clause 9 addresses what happens at the end of any trial period, and the amendment would give the Secretary of State the option of advancing summer time by one hour permanently.
Amendment 61, in my name and those of my hon. Friends the Members for Wellingborough and for Gainsborough, in clause 12, page 4, line 35, would leave out subsection (1). Clause 12 is the interpretation clause and subsection (1) defines what is meant by the expression
“advancing the time for general purposes in the United Kingdom”.
That is an extraordinary expression to incorporate in a piece of legislation. Clause 12 says that it means adding one hour to Greenwich mean time in the winter and one hour to summer time in the summer. As I hope is apparent from my introductory remarks, I regard adding an hour to Greenwich mean time in the winter as unacceptable—hence my amendment.
Amendment 79 is the last amendment to which I need to speak in the Chamber. [Interruption.] I hear people saying, “Hear, Hear,” and I agree. It has taken much longer to discuss this group of amendments than I expected, but that is because of the lively interest that so many Members have shown in the content of the various amendments in the group. Amendment 79 would leave out subsection (8) of clause 12. In a sense, this is a completely different topic from anything I have spoken about hitherto. I do not know whether everybody has looked at subsection (8), but it provides that
“A duty under this Act to publish a document may be complied with by publishing it on an internet site.”
I think that is wholly unsatisfactory. The issues raised in the Bill are far too important not to be the subject of physical, hard copy documents. Indeed, we have such documents before us today and they enable us to consider these issues and the amendments. I therefore think that hard copy documents relating to this very important issue should be available to individuals, organisations and businesses the length and breadth of the United Kingdom and that to publish such documents merely on an internet site would be a false economy.
Mr Nuttall
I completely agree with my hon. Friend. In view of the importance of this matter, can he assure me that that amendment will be pushed to a Division if it is not accepted?
Mr Chope
I cannot assure my hon. Friend about that, because there are a large number of amendments in this group and, ultimately, it is within the discretion of the person in the Chair—in this case the Deputy Speaker—to decide how many amendments he is prepared to allow a Division on. However, the point that my hon. Friend makes about this is very—
Mr Ellwood
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I seek your guidance. Can you make a judgment on Standing Order No. 37—the Golding closure— please?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
The hon. Gentleman would have to claim to move the closure under Standing Order No. 29. I think that might be his intention.
Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
I beg to move, That the Question be now proposed.
Mr Deputy Speaker
Under Standing Order No. 29, I am required to put the Question on the motion that the Question be now proposed forthwith—this Standing Order was last used in 1987—unless it shall appear to the Chair that such a motion is an abuse of the rules of the House.
Question put forthwith, That the Question now be proposed.
The House proceeded to a Division.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate a delay in the No Lobby.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Mr. Chope, you are such a magnanimous Member.
Sir Peter Bottomley
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I briefly say that the issue underlying the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) is whether we will align our waking hours and working hours to the available daylight? It is quite clear that we should do that and I hope that the amendment is rejected and that we move on to the other two groups of amendments.
Mr Deputy Speaker
I am sure that there will be no more non-points of order.
Rebecca Harris (Castle Point) (Con)
I am sure you will be relieved to know that I will be brief, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Bill strikes precisely the right balance on oversight without overburdening the working times of the House. I am mindful of the needs of religious communities and for their observances to be considered, as well as of the crucial importance of considering energy consumption. I envisage that that will be done in a robust, academically researched review, with a strong oversight committee to consider the matter, which will be vital to ensure public confidence in the research. We have already seen this morning that there are many different views on the potentialities of this measure in both summer and winter, so it is crucial that they be considered. That is why I oppose the amendments, and I urge the House to do so today.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
I too will be brief. I just want to take the opportunity to pay a glowing tribute to the hon. Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris), who has brought the Bill to the House. She has conducted herself in a manner that every hon. Member should follow; she has been constructive in her dealings with the Government and the Opposition on the Bill, not just with regard to today’s amendments, but in Committee at the beginning of December. She deserves great credit for introducing the Bill.
I hope that not too many Members feel that this is Groundhog day. As a new Member, I have not debated daylight savings before in the House, but many Members who have been here for slightly longer than I have will have had a number of such opportunities. As I said in Committee, I hope that we can conclude today’s debate, reach Third Reading and get moving on the Bill before it gets dark. That in itself would be a great tribute to the Bill.
Ian Murray
I will not give way, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind, because we want to move on. It is important that the Minister hears the debate on the amendments in the first group, which relate to the independent oversight group that will look after how we go forward with the in-depth report. There have been calls for faith groups to be consulted, and that is important. The energy issues put forward by the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid) should be at the top of the agenda. At a time when the Government are cutting too far and too fast and household incomes are—[Interruption.] It does not actually say that here, as someone claims from a sedentary position, but everyone in the country knows that the Government are going too far and too fast. Perhaps if those on the Treasury Bench would listen to Opposition Members, we might be a little further forward in terms of growth. I was making a serious point about energy, and such matters have to be taken into account.
The Minister has to be clear and specific about the role to be played by the devolved Administrations in putting together the report.
Ian Murray
I will not give way. The hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity to speak.
I commend the hon. Lady for bringing the Bill to this stage in the House and I hope that we can at least conclude its Third Reading this morning.
Mr Davey
I concur with the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) in his praise for my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris). May I, laser beam-like and briefly, focus on the amendments?
Amendment 3 talks about the independent oversight group. The hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) seemed to misunderstand what the group is about. It is about providing the appropriate challenge to the evidence and methodologies to ensure that they are robust. Amendment 3, which would dispense with the independent oversight group entirely, would be a retrograde step. The Committee welcomed the way in which we had approached the issue of the oversight group.
The amendments that seek to change the membership of the group misunderstand the role of the group. They seek to suggest that it is about representation, when it is not. Trying to confine it to academics only would be a mistake. There might be an appropriate expert who might not be described as an academic. I hope the House will understand that the oversight group is formed in the right way with the right terms of reference. I am surprised that Members want to amend the terms of reference to make them more prescriptive, because that could narrow them down.
Members have talked about the faith impact. Amendment 95 is not needed, because it is clear that this is one of the qualitative potential effects that the report would look at. To reassure hon. Members further, I can say that specific legal provision requiring that the impact on faith communities be considered is unnecessary because the Secretary of Sate is subject to the public sector equality duty in the Equality Act 2010. So, in preparing the report and taking a view on whether to exercise the powers for a trial, the Secretary of Sate would be required under that duty to take into account the impact that a change might have on people of a particular faith and, indeed, on other people with protected characteristics.
Mr MacNeil
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the Minister to speak so quickly that it is hard for him to be understood?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
That is not a point of order. It is up to the Minister how quickly he speaks. We do not place a limit on how fast or how slowly Ministers speak, and thank goodness for that.
Mr Davey
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.
I should like to speak to the lead amendment in this group, amendment 59, which seeks to turn the Bill into a summer time extension Bill by changing the dates on which summer time ends. I think that the hon. Member for Christchurch realises that that would not be compatible with the EU directive on summer time arrangements, which has been in force for many years. The House might wish to reflect—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Mr Chope, as a long-serving Member of the House, you know, as I do, that it is up to the Minister whether he gives way or not.
Mr Davey
I am showing the hon. Gentleman the courtesy that he showed to the other Members of the House who wished to speak on this matter.
The House might wish to reflect on the fact that, when the directive was passed, other member states changed their dates to coincide with those of the United Kingdom. I therefore do not think that we should change the nature of the Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point and amended in Committee. We should now proceed to debate the next group of amendments.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
I had intended, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn), to speak in the debate this morning in support of the Bill, and to draw the House’s attention to the South Yorkshire Safer Roads Partnership and to the impact that the Bill would have on reducing road accidents. I will not now do so, in the interest of saving time, but I would like to make the point that I have been lobbied on this issue by a wide variety of constituents. Unusually, I hope that they are not watching the debate today, because if they are, they will be appalled by the attempts of a tiny minority of Members to frustrate the overwhelming will of the House and of the country to support the Bill.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I wish to speak to my amendments 3 and 5, and to speak more broadly to some of the other amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope). However, I hope that I do not do so at such length that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) decides to move a motion to get me to shut up—the Commons equivalent of the Lords procedure to move that
“the noble Lord be no longer heard”.
We have just heard from the Minister, and I listened to him with great interest.
Mr MacNeil
I am impressed that the hon. Gentleman listened to the Minister. Was he able to understand, or even catch, some of the words that he enunciated?
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question; it is always good to have an intervention from him. I did manage to understand the Minister—or at least, I think I did—but I was shocked by what I heard. Once again, we heard that this House must be craven in front of the great power that is the European Union. We cannot even set our own time any more without the say-so of our friends in Brussels, and that is a pretty sorry state to have got into.
Mr MacNeil
On the point about harmonisation with Europe, many people have mentioned the costs for businesses. Surely, however, that argument should apply in reverse. If the gains are so great, would not the Eurocrats want to change so as to be in the same time zone as the world financial centre that is London? Perhaps this reveals the lie in the argument: there is no gain. The gain would be greater for those on the other side of the English channel than for those on the north side.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point, as he so often does. Na h-Eileanan an Iar is enormously well represented in the House, and it is one of the great arguments for maintaining the Union that he should continue to have an audience here for his wise words. I wanted to propose the introduction of Somerset time, a new time zone for the world, which the Europeans could come over to. Sadly, however, my amendment was not selected, for reasons that I fail to understand. The mysteries of this place to a relatively new Member remain manifold.
I should like to speak briefly to amendment 59 before I come to my own amendments. It is a wonderfully wise amendment, because it understands that in the winter there is a shortage of daylight and that Greenwich mean time has the great advantage—a somewhat old-fashioned one, perhaps—of the sun being at its highest point at noon. This gives us an even balance of sunlight during the course of the day.
Mr MacNeil
The hon. Gentleman is making an important point. Surely midday is not called midday by accident. It is called midday because it is in the middle of the day.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
As always, my hon. Friend makes a wise and pertinent intervention.
There has been one occasion in history on which daylight was extended. Those hon. Members who are up on their Bible will remember their studies from their student days. They will recall the book of Joshua, chapter 10, verse 13:
“And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven and hastened not to go down about a whole day.”
That is really what amendment 59 is all about. It is about accepting what verse 14 goes on to say, which is that that happened only once; it was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. God allowed the sun to stand still in the heavens on that day only, and never again.
There is absolutely nothing that we can do about that. No great Act of Parliament or—dare I say it—regulation from the European Union can create more daylight. We are therefore faced with a simple choice in the winter. Do we get up in the dark and have teatime when it is a bit brighter, or do we have murky, dank, dark mornings—I am sorry, I meant that the other way round. Do we instead get up with a spring in our step and go to work with enthusiasm, full of beans and ready to face the world, and sacrifice a little bit of daylight at teatime?
In seeking to leave us on summer time, my hon. Friend’s amendment would allow all the supposed advantages to be investigated, including having an extra hour of daylight in the evenings so that people could have their barbecues and all that sort of thing, but it would not upset the mornings. That is particularly important for our friends in Scotland, which is why I want to mention amendment 23.
Mr Chope
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his support for my amendment 59. Did he notice that, when the Minister made his very brief response to my amendment, he completely misrepresented the effect that it would have? He suggested that it would alter the date on which summer time came to an end, and thereby cause problems with the European Union. He was wrong about that.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
There is another amendment, tabled by other hon. Members, that would have that effect. I take my hon. Friend’s very valid point, however. He was not proposing to change the dates on which summer time comes into force.
Mr Tom Harris
I am enjoying the hon. Gentleman’s contribution, although I am disappointed that he is being rather flippant about such a serious issue. He has mentioned the sacrifice of a spring in our step as we get up in the morning, as though that is the only sacrifice to be made. I am slightly more concerned about the number of road accidents in my constituency and throughout Scotland. The sacrifice of people’s lives and health and the level of their injuries are slightly more important than whether we get up from our beds with a spring in our step.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I have the greatest respect for the hon. Gentleman and, had I thought that he would welcome it, I would have supported his candidacy for the Labour leadership in Scotland. I kept very quiet about that, however, because I thought that I might do him more harm than good.
As has been pointed out by other Members, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil), it is easy to argue about such statistics. Given the general trend in the reduction in the number of casualties on the roads, the arguments are not as straightforwardly causal as some suggest.
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
My hon. Friend may be aware that the Select Committee on Transport, of which I am a member, is embarking on an inquiry into road safety measures. It will consider a range of matters, including speed limits and MOT tests. I think that it would be difficult to isolate the effect of changing daylight hours on the road accident figures.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend makes an extraordinarily good and wise point. People sometimes see things happen and figures change, and then claim that A led to B. Somerset county council switched off all its speed cameras and the number of accidents fell dramatically, but, much as I dislike speed cameras, it seems unlikely that in that instance A led directly to B. We should be enormously careful about advancing arguments based on theoretical statistics relating to what might happen when there is a strong general trend.
The key issue—I now return to the subject of amendment 59—is that of what people like. Why do we not learn the lessons of history? We have tried this before. We tried it during the war, but people did not like it, and as soon as the war ended we got rid of it. If it had been such a fantabulous idea, we would have retained it in the later 1940s, and in the 1970s.
Let us consider Portugal, our oldest ally and our ally since the treaty of Windsor in 1386. Portugal made this mistake. The Portuguese erred: they decided to abandon the proper time, as set by the sun, and get closer to Europe. That failed, and they reversed their decision.
Mr MacNeil
The hon. Gentleman mentions Portugal. Only yesterday, I discovered that according to Mr João Grancho, president of the national association of teachers in that country, the time change had
“generated irritability and inattention among the youngest and many fell asleep in class”.
Of course they fell asleep: they had been woken in the middle of the night to go to school. That is exactly what would happen here if we were so foolish as to forget the lessons of 30 or 40 years ago.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am grateful for that invaluable intervention. I am sorry to say that I think that merely discussing this issue causes irritability among some hon. Members.
Mr Adrian Sanders (Torbay) (LD)
A simple look at any map reveals that the whole of Portugal is far to the west of the United Kingdom. Were the United Kingdom on the same degree of longitude, I should be with the hon. Gentleman, but it is not, and therefore I am not.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
That brings me to amendment 23, which requires the consultation to include representatives from England—in brackets, Somerset—Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Mr MacNeil
As the hon. Gentleman may know, Na h-Eileanan an Iar—which he pronounces so well—is 7.5 degrees, or a full half hour, west of the United Kingdom. We are penalised for that as well as being to the north of the UK. We have a problem of both latitude and longitude.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
That is an extremely important point. If one is a Unionist—if one believes that this is one great country consisting of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and that we should be united as a single people—one has to maintain that if the poorest crofter in Na h-Eileanan an Iar is inconvenienced for a ha’porth of extra business in Cornwall, that is most unreasonable, because it has a disproportionate effect on our friends and allies in Scotland.
Robert Halfon
I was surprised when my hon. Friend defended communist China, as opposed to the land of the free. I do not understand why he is against the operation of different time zones in the same country, given that according to evidence in the United States and elsewhere, they need not prevent countries from remaining entirely united.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend has already heard me say that China is very big. It must be acknowledged that the United States is also quite big, although not as big as China. For a huge country to operate different time zones is one thing, but when I proposed that Somerset should have its own time zone—because it struck me as perfectly rational that time should be set from the centre of the universe—my proposal was considered slightly eccentric. It was felt that the United Kingdom should not be divided in that way. I do not see why, if this is not considered appropriate for Somerset, we should suddenly do it to Scotland.
I also think it hugely important symbolically to our standing as one country for there to be no difference in time in different parts of that country. The Bill, as it stands, seeks to ignore the Union for the sake of some rather narrow and selfish benefits that are, in fact, trivial in comparison with the great history and breadth of our country’s tradition.
Mr MacNeil
I am concerned by the suggestion that a shared time zone enables us to live happily together in one country. We can live happily in many countries together. I believe that the Republic of Ireland proves that point. I hope that we are not seeing any hint of a return of 19th-century imperialism, or any wish for the Republic of Ireland to be ruled directly from the House of Commons.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
As it happens, I think that it would be good manners to consult the Republic of Ireland as well, because the Irish economy is very dependent on the UK economy. I should like to see that covered in the Bill, although it is not mentioned in the amendment. As I have said, a rather selfish approach has been taken .
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
My hon. Friend has spoken of the importance of obtaining a spread of opinion, including the views of people living in the extreme north-west of Scotland. Should that spread of opinion not include people living in places such as Dungeness in my constituency, which is in the extreme south-east of England? The fishermen there might welcome the time change.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Of course we should take into account the views of the whole country, but the real problems come in some of the furthest-flung parts that are the most remote from us in Westminster, where people’s livelihoods may require them to get up earlier in the morning.
At one point, I felt that much of the Bill was aimed at lie-abeds—those who do not get up very early in the morning, but snooze on, remaining fast asleep in a relaxed and happy way. Many people get up in the winter at times when it would be dark not only until they had got up, had their breakfast, shaved and so forth, but by the time they had reached the office, even if they had quite long commuting times. All those people are being ignored.
I return to the issue of the Union. What we need—and amendment 23 represents this—is a clear view of the effects that the Bill would have in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales as well as in London.
Mr Tom Harris
At the risk of extending the hon. Gentleman’s speech, may I point out that he is pursuing a false path by suggesting that the Bill is in some way anti-Scottish—that it is somehow against the interests of Scotland? I support it because I, as a Scottish MP, believe that it will benefit my constituents and my compatriots in Scotland. It is ridiculous, and very dangerous, to conjure up some kind of false division, or false sense of grievance. The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) is very good at that, but the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) should be very careful about going down the same path. This is not about Scotland versus England; it is about considering the evidence for a case for improving the lives of people throughout our nation.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am very interested by what the hon. Gentleman says, but if it were simply a case of looking for the evidence, the Government could do that anyway. The Government produce Green Papers, White Papers and discussion documents, and set up inquiries that publish reports. If every one of those required a private Member’s Bill to be passed by the House, we would be saved a large number of inquiries.
Philip Davies
If the Bill is not anti-Scottish and if people are happy with it, there will be no problem with ensuring that the oversight group contains members from all four parts of the United Kingdom. Does my hon. Friend agree that if the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Mr Harris) is right, the amendment should be accepted by all Members, regardless of whether they support the Bill?
Jacob Rees-Mogg
That is an excellent point. I hope that it was heard by my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris), because she is one of the wisest Members in the House, and has handled the Bill with so much charm that she almost persuaded me to support it. Perhaps she and the Bill’s sponsors will accept amendment 23.
Dr Whiteford
As the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Mr Harris) pointed out, there is a range of opinion in the nations, as one would expect. In that sense, having one person from each of the devolved Administrations would by no means be an adequate way of taking into account the wide range of public opinion on these issues. As I understand it, time is a devolved matter in Northern Ireland, a consequence of the very asymmetric devolution across the islands. Northern Ireland will be very affected by this, but the Assembly effectively has the power of veto under the current devolution arrangements.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I think that that wanders slightly beyond the parameters of this rather narrow amendment, although I do accept that there could be an unlimited number of people to try to represent all shades of opinion, but I think that it would be a good idea if the one person to represent Scotland represented the majority party in Scotland, which would clearly be sensible, and perhaps one or two hon. Members present would be able to volunteer to do that.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Of course I will—I have been waiting for the hon. Gentleman to ask.
Thomas Docherty
Does the hon. Gentleman mean the majority party in the Scottish Parliament, where the Scottish National party is the majority party, or here in Westminster, where Scottish Labour is clearly the majority party?
Jacob Rees-Mogg
On that occasion I meant the majority party in the Scottish Parliament, but I see the hon. Gentleman’s point, so perhaps we should have two representatives from Scotland, which means we must also have two from Somerset, because Somerset would feel let down if the numbers were not maintained with the rest of the Union. [Interruption.] I did not quite catch the comment the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) made from a sedentary position but will happily give way if he wishes to intervene.
I want to move on to my amendment 3, which proposes a cost-cutting measure, and I know that some hon. Members think that taxpayers’ money should be spent willy-nilly and that part of our job here is to take money out of people’s pockets and waste it, but I thought that we would get rid of the whole of clause 2, which sets out the independent oversight group. The relevant Secretary of State and President of the Board of Trade, the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Vince Cable), is known to be one of the wisest men in Parliament. Lenin’s brain after his untimely death was kept for scientific research to see how such a great brain could operate and why it was different from other brains, and I am sure that this will happen in the sad event of the death of the President of the Board of Trade—may that day long be put off.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
I do not think that Lenin’s brain quite links with daylight hours in the UK.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
The reason I brought it up to be linked is that if we get rid of clause 2 the President of the Board of Trade, which can meet with a quorum of one, would then be able to consider the issue by himself. Such a great brain—a brain that competes with Lenin’s and will be a matter of interest to scientific research—could consider this without the huge extra cost that might be incurred by paying the expenses of the members of the proposed oversight group, making facilities available to it and giving it written terms of reference.
Iain Stewart
Has my hon. Friend had an opportunity to quantify the cost to the public purse of such an oversight group?
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I have not, but I know that these things always cost more than is anticipated and that any great project, adventure or public spending scheme starts with the expectation that it will cost a few thousand pounds here or there, then a few tens of thousands, and then a few hundreds of thousands. Before we know it, the experiment is in place and we find that the cost to the British people runs into millions. Would it not be better to get rid of this group of experts and give it, as I have suggested, to the President of the Board of Trade, who would then be able, should he so wish, to convene a meeting to discuss it.
The Board of Trade is one of those fantastically underutilised bodies in British public life. It is a Committee of the Privy Council, established in the reign of His late Majesty King George III, and it last met in 1986 to celebrate its 200th anniversary. If the president were to summon the board’s members, it would have all the wisdom that the country would need to deliberate on this complex matter, because its members include His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, Mr Speaker himself—that would certainly set us on the right course—the First Lord of the Treasury, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and other Treasury Ministers. It would bring together a fantastic conference of wisdom and brain power—[Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
I am willing to accept the closure—the references to Lenin’s brain finally persuaded me.
Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.
The House proceeded to a Division.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the No Lobby.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the Aye Lobby.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 30, page 2, line 31, leave out from ‘must’ to end and insert
‘obtain agreement from the Scottish First Minister and First Minister of Wales.’.
Amendment 32, page 2, line 32, leave out ‘not’.
Amendment 14, page 2, line 34, leave out paragraph (a).
Amendment 35, in clause 5, page 3, line 4, leave out ‘three years’ and insert ‘one year’.
Amendment 85, page 3, line 4, leave out ‘three’ and insert ‘two’.
Amendment 16, in clause 5, page 3, line 7, leave out ‘March’ and insert ‘February’.
Amendment 17, page 3, line 9, leave out ‘October’ and insert ‘November’.
Amendment 38, in clause 6, page 3, line 20, at end insert—
‘(4) The Secretary of State must ask for reports from the Scottish First Minister, the First Minister of Wales and the First Minister of Northern Ireland on the trial period.’.
Amendment 92, page 3, line 21, leave out Clause 7.
Amendment 40, page 3, line 28, leave out Clause 8.
Amendment 70, in clause 8, page 3, line 30, leave out ‘a later’ and insert ‘an earlier’.
Amendment 42, page 3, line 36, leave out from ‘must’ to end of line 37 and insert
‘obtain agreement from the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and Northern Ireland Assembly.’.
Amendment 43, page 3, line 36, leave out from ‘must’ to end of line 37 and insert
‘obtain agreement from the Scottish First Minister, the First Minister of Wales and the First Minister of Northern Ireland.’.
Amendment 78, in clause 12, page 5, line 15, leave out from ‘(N.I.))’ to end of line 19.
Amendment 94, in clause 14, page 6, line 3, leave out
‘on the day on which’
and insert ‘two months after’.
Amendment 11, page 6, line 4, at end add—
‘(4) If the trial period has not commenced before the dissolution of the Parliament in which this Act was passed, the Act shall thereupon be repealed.’.
Mr Reid
I shall speak to amendment 13, which I view as an important and key amendment. It would mean that the trial could not proceed unless it had the support of every part of the United Kingdom. The Bill says that the trial cannot proceed without the support of the House of Commons, the House of Lords,
“the First Minister and deputy First Minister in Northern Ireland”.
Unionists and nationalists in Northern Ireland effectively have a veto on this Bill. When it comes to other parts of the United Kingdom like Scotland and Wales, however, the Secretary of State has only to
“consult the Scottish…and the Welsh Ministers.”
He does not need to obtain their agreement; all he has to do is consult them.
Other amendments would require the Secretary of State to obtain the consent of Governments and Ministers in Scotland and Wales, but it is always important to remember that it is Parliaments and Assemblies, not Governments, that are elected to represent the people. In some cases, like Wales currently, a minority Government might be in power.
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
The hon. Gentleman and I probably have different views on the substance of the Bill—many of the constituents who got in touch with me support it and I certainly hope it goes forward to the stage when a review and investigation can be carried out on the options—but does he agree that one way of dealing with the concerns raised in Scotland would be precisely to adopt his amendment? That is why I shall support it if a Division is called on it.
Mr Reid
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his support. He makes the important point that the debate on the amendment is not about the substance of the Bill, but about whose consent should be required for it. I hope that hon. Members from all parts of the United Kingdom will support the amendment. Wherever an hon. Member comes from, I hope they will agree that a measure like this, which will have different effects on different parts of the UK, is so important that it should go forward only if it has the support of every part of the UK.
Philip Davies
I agree with the thrust of the hon. Gentleman’s amendment. As he knows, I have tabled similar amendments, which I hope to be able to discuss. Will he explain why it is so important to him that Parliament as a whole—the Scottish Parliament as a whole, the Welsh Assembly as a whole—rather than the First Minister should be specified? The Bill in its present form seeks the agreement only of the First Minister in Northern Ireland, so why does the hon. Gentleman think the arrangements should be different for Scotland and Wales?
Mr Reid
I am grateful, because the hon. Gentleman raises an important subject. When my party was in opposition, I was a spokesperson on Northern Ireland for a few years. I am far from an expert on the Northern Ireland constitution, but one important element to remember is that what is called cross-community voting applies to passing motions or resolutions in the Northern Ireland Assembly. That means that a resolution has to be supported by a majority of both Unionists and nationalists. I was not expert enough on the workings of the Northern Ireland Assembly and its Standing Orders to draft an amendment that would cover the cross-community voting, but the Government amendment added to the Bill in Committee requiring the consent of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister in Northern Ireland means, in effect, that a majority of Unionists and of nationalists must support the Bill for it to go through. Both the First Minister, Peter Robinson, and the Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness, have been given a veto, so even if the Bill is passed by this Parliament, I am far from convinced that it would go any further, as it is odds on that one of those gentlemen would use his veto.
Mr MacNeil
This is a useful amendment, but may I set the hon. Gentleman’s mind at rest by saying that I have a hunch that the First Minister and Deputy First Minister in Scotland might be of a similar mind?
Mr Reid
I have no doubt that they are, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is on much more intimate terms with the First Minister and Deputy First Minister in Scotland than I am. My relationship with them seems to involve exchanging letters, whereby they disagree with almost everything that I put to them. However, that is probably digressing a fair bit.
It is important to remember that getting a resolution through a Parliament requires the support of a majority of the Members of that Parliament, whereas Governments can be minority Governments. The First Minister in Scotland currently leads a majority Government, but the First Minister in Wales leads a minority Government, so it would be perfectly possible for the First Minister in Wales to support the Bill but for the majority of Welsh Assembly Members to oppose it. That is why it is very important that Parliaments and Assemblies decide, rather than Ministers, and why I specified the “Scottish Parliament” and the “Welsh Assembly” in my amendment, rather than Governments. Other amendments before us today would give this power to the devolved Administrations, and the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) discussed an amendment in Committee that would have given the power to Scotland’s First Minister or to the Scottish Government. Obviously, as a member of the same party as the First Minister, he might be happy with that approach, but my preference would be for the whole Parliament to make the decision.
Mark Lazarowicz
It may well be that by the time the order is presented by the Secretary of State here people will have had enough experience of a Scottish National party majority Government in Scotland to have replaced it after the next Scottish elections.
Mr Reid
I share the hon. Gentleman’s view that that is likely to happen in 2016, but the time scale in the Bill is that the decision on whether to proceed to the trial will have to take place before then. However, the next group of amendments relates to what happens after the trial, and the happy circumstances that the hon. Gentleman describes may well have occurred by then and we may well be back to a minority Government in Scotland.
Mr MacNeil
The hon. Gentleman rightly says that I made a similar proposal in Committee to move these things to Scotland. I also tabled an amendment to the Scotland Bill to move these powers to the Scottish Parliament, but did he support me then?
Mr Reid
I voted against the hon. Gentleman’s amendment, as it opened up the possibility of ending up with the time in Scotland being different from that in England. If we accepted his amendment, the Parliament here, legislating for England, could decide to advance time by one hour and it would obviously do so without consulting Scotland. The Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government would then be presented with a fait accompli. They would have a choice of either having a different time zone in Scotland or copying what had happened in England and advancing time by one hour.
Mr MacNeil
I invite the hon. Gentleman to imagine a scenario in which the Prime Minister behaved in a high-handed manner, as he did last week, and bounced such a measure on Scotland. What would the hon. Gentleman do in such a situation?
Mr Reid
I voted against the hon. Gentleman’s amendment to the Scotland Bill and I am still opposed to any amendment that would lead to different times in Scotland and England, simply because if a matter is devolved to Scotland, members of the Government here are perfectly entitled to consider only England when debating and voting on such matters. When something is a reserved matter and applies throughout the United Kingdom, I hope that all Members of the House will take into account all parts of the country.
Mr Tom Harris
Is it not the case that the hon. Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) and the Government have gone to great lengths to ensure that Scotland is protected and that that protection and consideration for Scottish concerns would be completely wiped out in the case of independence, which would mean that England would be able to change its hours without any reference at all to Scotland, with all the negative effects that would have on trade between Scotland and England?
Mr Reid
I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. If the referendum proposed by the SNP in Scotland were to succeed, Scotland would have no say about the time in England. If the clock was moved forward by an hour in England, the situation to which I referred earlier would arise and the Scottish Government and Parliament would be presented with a fait accompli.
Mr Reid
I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. He shows once again the complete inconsistency of the Scottish Government. One minute, they ask for one thing and, if it is granted, they start huffing and puffing and complaining that the Government here are being anti-Scottish. In fact, the Government here have given the Scottish Government exactly what they asked for.
Mr MacNeil
I have not had a chance to look at the website recently, but is the hon. Gentleman saying that the Conservative Government are pro-Scottish?
Mr Reid
There is no Conservative Government. There is a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition Government and it is very pro-Scottish. That is why my hon. Friend the Minister tabled amendments in Committee to do what the Scottish First Minister had asked and make provisions for consulting the Scottish and Welsh Ministers. I believe that this House should go further than consultation and should allow the Parliaments to have a say in these matters. It is important that Parliaments decide such matters, not Ministers.
Mr MacNeil
Will the hon. Gentleman answer the question I asked earlier? If this House were to bounce an unpopular change of time zone on Scotland, what would the hon. Gentleman do, given that he has ensured that the Scottish Government do not have the powers in their locker to ensure that we do not have a time change that will be very inconvenient, especially in the winter months, bounced on us?
Mr Reid
I have tabled this amendment so that the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly will have to vote before any change goes through. The votes would have to take place before the start of the trial, and my amendment in the next group would mean that the same votes would have to take place after the trial and before the scheme could become permanent. The Government, as the Minister explained, have given the Scottish Government exactly what they asked for, so I do not understand why the hon. Gentleman is complaining.
Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman talks about the Welsh Assembly Government a lot, but has he actually consulted them on his amendment or spoken to anyone about it?
Mr Reid
I have not spoken to anybody in Wales, but I have spoken to plenty of people in Scotland. It is very important that we have devolution throughout the United Kingdom and I think Welsh Members would have been far more likely to complain had I tabled an amendment that simply gave the Scottish Parliament the right to a vote and not the Welsh Assembly. That would have meant more complaints from Welsh Members.
Mr Tom Harris
Further to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami), I note that the hon. Gentleman is daily in touch with Welsh Members of this House. What discussions has he had with them, if not with the Welsh Assembly Government?
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I think that the inclusion of Wales in this amendment shows my hon. Friend’s generosity of spirit. He is not being selfish about Scotland but is extending the benefits throughout the Union, which is to be greatly admired.
Mr Reid
I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I was slightly concerned that he was going to complain that I had not consulted anyone from Somerset, or included that county. [Interruption.] My right hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr Foster) reminds me that I did talk to him. I am afraid that I am not au fait with the boundaries of the historic counties in England, but I understood that my right hon. Friend came from Avon, but—
Mr Reid
I must admit that I am not au fait with the boundaries of all the historic counties of England and I hope that hon. Members, whether they are from Somerset or Avon, if I am allowed to use that word, are not offended. I am grateful that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) did not hold it against me that I did not give the county of Somerset a veto.
Mr MacNeil
Of course, if the power were given to Wales, it would not have to be exercised, but it would be a courtesy to give the power anyway. There is great merit and sense in taking that approach.
Mr Reid
Yes, the hon. Gentleman makes an important point, which answers well the point made by the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami), who has left the Chamber and did not stay to hear that response. We would be giving the Welsh Assembly a right that they would not have to exercise.
Mr Chope
Does my hon. Friend share my concern that we could have consulted the Scottish people if the Bill had been allowed to proceed immediately after its Second Reading, as it could have been debated in the House prior to the Scottish election? The coalition Government decided not to allow the Bill to proceed until after that election. Does he think that was rather a cynical exercise by the Government?
Mr Reid
I had better not express any view on the Government’s actions. I know they took nearly a year to bring forward the money resolution, but I shall merely comment on that in passing without expressing any view about motive. I always prefer to talk about the facts and not to ascribe motives.
Because of the geography of the United Kingdom and the effect that that has on when daylight occurs, it is important that the trial has support throughout the United Kingdom. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are all both further north and further west than Greenwich. Being north of Greenwich means that we get fewer hours of daylight in the winter than Greenwich, and it is vital to make the maximum use of those few valuable daylight hours. Being west of Greenwich means that the sun rises and sets later than at Greenwich. The combined effect of being further north and further west means that sunrise is a lot later, and this Bill would make it a further hour later.
Although most of the United Kingdom is west of Greenwich, some parts are east of it. If the clocks were advanced by an hour, the difference in the east of the country between the time on the clock and the natural time—or pre-railway time as the hon. Member for North East Somerset would describe it—would be less than an hour. However, in the parts of the United Kingdom west of Greenwich the time difference would be more than an hour—significantly more in some places. That is why it is extremely important that the trial should have the support of all parts of the United Kingdom.
I was at school during the previous trial and I have a vivid memory of watching a beautiful winter sunrise from the physics lab at school, but then realising that it was nearly 10 o’clock and just how ridiculous it was for the sun to be rising about two hours before midday.
Mr Reid
No. As the hon. Member for North East Somerset said, there are limits to the powers even of the House or of the European Union. The basic laws of physics and astronomy have not changed in the past 40 years. The sun will still rise at the same time on the equivalent day of the year.
I shall give an example from my constituency. On the Isle of Tiree, if the change were made, it would be 10 am before the sun rose in the middle of winter. Further north and west, the sunrise would be even later—at 10.10 am in Stornoway and later still on the Isle of Unst in the Shetlands. To contrast that with Westminster, here even in the depths of winter the sun would rise at 9.4 am. That is more than an hour before it would rise in the northerly and westerly parts of the country. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Glasgow South (Mr Harris) refers to the time the sun rises at present. Sunrise now is at 8.4 am; it would be 9.4 am with the proposed change.
Mr Tom Harris
I am sorry to delay the hon. Gentleman. I was making the point, albeit from a sedentary position, that the time difference between sunrise in one part of the country and another will always be the same. He was trying to imply that changing the clocks would somehow reduce the gap between the time that the sun rises in the south and in the north.
Mr Reid
I am grateful for that intervention. I am sorry the hon. Gentleman misunderstood the point that I was trying to make. Even in the depths of winter, sunrise here in London would be at 9.4 am. Because there is a period of twilight before sunrise and after sunset, children going to school in London even in the depths of winter would still be going in half-light, which is the present situation in Scotland. If the change were made, children in London would go to school in the half-light, but children in Scotland would go to school in complete pitch blackness, and it is important to remember that in country areas there are no street lights, so it would literally be pitch black when those children were going to school. At present even in the depths of winter in Scotland, children go to school in the twilight, but the Bill would make them do that in pitch blackness.
Mr Chope
Does my hon. Friend accept that, in effect, the promoter of the Bill concedes the points that he makes? What is proposed is that there should be two different time zones in the United Kingdom—one for Scotland, if people there wanted to keep things as they are now, and a different one for the rest of the United Kingdom. Does my hon. Friend not think that is absurd?
Mr Reid
It would indeed be absurd to have two different time zones within the United Kingdom. Hon. Members representing places such as Berwick and Carlisle would probably agree. I do not think there is any possibility of the Bill allowing that to happen, but it would be silly if it did.
I turn now to the road accident statistics. The surveys that took place at the time of the previous trial 40 years ago were inconclusive. That is not just my opinion. That was the view of the Home Secretary at the time, Reginald Maudling, who said:
“The figures are not clear enough to base a decision upon.”—[Official Report, 2 December 1970; Vol. 807, c. 1335.]
The reason for that is that the breathalyser was introduced at the same time, and there is no way of knowing how much of the fall in road accidents was due to the introduction of the breathalyser. If the fall had been due to the clock going forward an hour, once the experiment was abandoned and we went back to Greenwich mean time in winter, one would have expected the number of road accidents to increase. But that did not happen; it continued to fall. It has continued to fall simply because we design cars better, we have better road traffic legislation and we educate drivers better.
Mr MacNeil
The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point that is often cited. When we look at the data, we see that the graph falls more steeply after the trial, which almost indicates that the trial could have cost lives. Had the trial not occurred, that rapid descent showing the number of people killed in collisions on roads in Great Britain between 1968 and 1971 might have been steeper, meaning that some people who were killed in that period might still be alive today. It is a very serious issue.
Mr Reid
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The words of the Home Secretary of the day sum it up best; the outcome was inconclusive.
This point is relevant to the amendment because one figure that came out of the trial was that whereas during that period road deaths in most of country went down, in the north of Scotland, they went up, and it should be borne in mind that even after the introduction of the breathalyser road deaths in the north of Scotland went up. That is important because it shows that there are different impacts in different parts of the United Kingdom. Therefore, amendment 13 is important.
Iain Stewart
My hon. Friend makes an important point about the declining number of road accidents in the previous experiment. Current road traffic casualty statistics are still on a downward trajectory, which is welcome, but if we had this experiment, it would be difficult to disentangle the continuation of that downward trend, for a range of other reasons, from the effect of changing the clocks.
Mr Reid
My hon. Friend makes an important point. That is why the Home Secretary of the day concluded that the result was inconclusive.
I tabled amendment 14 to attempt a compromise. My concern is about the dark mornings in my constituency in the depths of winter that will result from the Bill. Passing the amendment would allow the investigatory body to look at other options. My preference would be to bring forward the spring clock change to the middle of February. The October clock change is at the right time because there are eight weeks before the shortest day. Logically, if there were eight weeks in the other direction, the clocks would go forward in the middle of February. The importance of that is that we would avoid the dark winter mornings, but still have the benefit of lighter evenings in March.
Other amendments give specific days for the change of the clocks, but mine is the most suitable because it would allow the investigating committee some flexibility. I realise that it would breach the European directive, so the Government could not make that change even if the investigatory group recommended it unless the EU changed the directive. However, it would be an important addition to the Bill to allow the investigatory group to consider the possibility of moving the clocks forward at an earlier date. If its investigations and consultations showed that that was the right move to make, the Minister could be sent to Brussels to try to negotiate a change in the European directive. I am sure that similar issues must arise in the rest of Europe, so that is an option that amendment 14 would leave open
Mr Chope
I understand my hon. Friend’s point, but does he share my concern that his amendment is in danger of resulting in the perfect being the enemy of the good? His amendment is perfectly rational, but the reality is that the pressure to have harmonisation of clock changes across Europe is such that the alternative proposal that I put forward would be better than nothing, although not as good as his. Does he agree that my proposal just to extend British summer time and leaving GMT as it is should also be an option available to the committee?
Mr Reid
I think that you would rule me out of order if I spoke to an amendment that had just been voted down, Mr Deputy Speaker.
My amendment would open up other options. The Bill already gives a veto to both Houses of this Parliament, as well as to the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland. I believe that the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments should also have a veto before the trial goes ahead. Consulting the Ministers is not good enough; the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly must decide. I therefore commend amendment 13 to the House.
Mr MacNeil
I congratulate the hon. Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris). It is rare indeed for a Back Bencher’s Bill to get so far up the parliamentary chain, and she has shown great grace and courtesy in my dealings with her on this issue. Her Bill has perhaps made such progress with the help of the Government, but it is none the less quite an accomplishment. Having said that, I will continue to subject it to intense scrutiny.
I believe that, when people experience the clock change, the head of steam raised by a small but dedicated campaign group will be dramatically outweighed. The 1970 Division in the House was passed by 366 votes to 81, and as I have said, that involved Members not only from Scotland and the SNP but from the north of England and everywhere else. Further south, Portugal has changed back after two experiments. We are in real danger of slipping much further with this; our guard might go down, and we might subject people to an uncomfortable winter.
Having spoken to representatives of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents I tabled an amendment to deal with its concerns about safety, although I do not agree with some of its interpretations. However, if tabling the amendment will put the matter to rest, it is worth doing.
My concerns about the clock change are vast. I remain unconvinced about the potential benefits, and the losses are proven. Many of my concerns are based on the data provided by the Lighter Later campaign, which argues that an extra hour of sunlight at the end of the day would be a panacea for the UK’s problems. It claims that people would go outside more, consume less electricity, watch less television, eat better, sleep better, run and swim more, commit fewer crimes, be less afraid to go outside, spend countless billions on tourism and be involved in fewer car accidents. Those projections do not stand up to scrutiny at all, although the change is presented as the greatest thing since sliced bread—
Mr MacNeil
The hon. Gentleman gives me a great opportunity to say that independence will be better than sliced bread.
Mr Chope
Has the hon. Gentleman seen this little postcard-sized piece of paper, which claims that the Bill would
“boost the economy, make the nation happier, save lives, save carbon”?
It goes on to say: “Save the date”. Is not that an example of the gross exaggeration that the supporters of the Bill are using in their tactics to get people to support it?
Mr MacNeil
The hon. Gentleman mentions the claim that the provisions would “make the nation happier”. As a result of information that I received from Portugal, it occurred to me yesterday that a measure of happiness might be a country’s divorce rate. So I got my researchers, Christopher Mullins-Silverstein and Xavier Solano, to approach the House of Commons Library and ask for the UK’s divorce rate figures during the trial period from 1968 to 1970. There was a small but significant spike in the divorce rate, which fell back down again after the trial period was over. I am not sure whether the divorce rate is an indicator of happiness—I suppose it could be argued either way—but it certainly went up at that time. Perhaps the morning irritability that I have mentioned was present at the breakfast tables of the United Kingdom, and perhaps it tipped a few people over—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. I hate to interfere with the hon. Gentleman’s pursuit of happiness, but I think that we have got the gist of his argument. We understand that he is against the Bill, but I wonder which amendment he is speaking to at the moment.
Mr MacNeil
I am speaking to amendment 17, Mr Deputy Speaker. I think it important to set the context of the amendment, and that is what I am doing. Claims are made on one side and claims are made on the other, but I am a reasonable, generous and conciliatory man—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] I thank my colleagues for that. I am prepared to inconvenience myself and give a little. I do not have an “all or nothing” mindset, and I have warned the Lighter Later supporters from the outset that if they take an “all or nothing” approach, they are likely to end up getting nothing. The olive branch is still extended.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I wonder whether my hon. Friend has considered fully the problem of the European Union’s not allowing us to proceed with the amendment under its directive. Does he feel that a “notwithstanding” clause might have been helpful to overrule the European Communities Act 1972?
Mr MacNeil
I think that European directives and rules are often perceived as guidelines by the continental and the Celtic mind, and—if I may be so bold—as commandments by the Anglo-Saxon mind. If we really intend to investigate the safety issues, a European directive should not be seen as a commandment that can override all such considerations.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I wonder further whether my hon. Friend thinks that if we did have a big fight with Brussels over this, it would increase the happiness of the nation.
Mr MacNeil
That is a very interesting question. Debate, discussion and arguments can of course be invigorating, and can cause serotonin and other useful hormones to flow through the body. The hon. Gentleman may be on to something. I am sure that a considerable constituency in the country would be greatly cheered by a fight with Europe—myself included, certainly when it comes to fishing issues.
Let me return to the amendment, Mr Deputy Speaker. One of my main complaints is that most of the data used by the campaigns are based on simulations and estimates. Dr Elizabeth Garnsey, author of the report on daylight saving that has been used by Lighter Later, has said:
“the data that are being used in the BRE report are simulated data. They are illustrative data—that is, invented data. When you do a simulation of that kind your outputs are going to represent the input assumptions that you made.”
In many senses, those data might not be real. However, I shall try to use only empirical data to prove my point.
The hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) was very concerned with the issue of happiness, as, indeed, was the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). I hope that I have pronounced his constituency correctly, as he pronounces mine so well: I hope that I have used the correct Somerset intonations.
On the issue of depression and sunlight, those leading the change campaign have said that more light in the evening can help to abate seasonal affective disorder and depression, using a 1993 study to prove their case. However, Professor Michael Terman, a PhD who works in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University in America, conducted a study this year that proved the exact opposite, and his findings were supported by Dr Malcolm von Schantz of the University of Surrey. Dr Terman found that darker mornings lead to increased depression, because the body’s natural clock needs morning sunlight in order to operate properly.
Iain Stewart
The hon. Gentleman has raised an important point. Many people in my constituency, which is in the south-east of England, commute to London daily. Indeed, I was a daily commuter myself before I was elected. In the winter, doing both journeys in the dark is a pretty miserable experience, and I fear that the time change would subject more commuters to more misery in the winter.
Mr MacNeil
It is not just crofters in the outer Hebrides about whom I worry; I worry about the commuters of Milton Keynes as well. We are talking about human experiences, and it was not the people of the outer Hebrides who were responsible for the reversal of the time change; it was the good people of Milton Keynes, who were experiencing that particular misery over three winters. We should bear it in mind that the Bill commits us to at least 15 months of really dark winters, although I hope that my amendment will get around that to some extent.
To use the obvious example, how do we feel when we have to get out of bed on a dark and dreary morning, rather than when the sun is up? Our entire mood is changed because of the lack of sunlight. If the clocks are changed, nearly all of us will have to wake up and go out in the dark for a longer period of the year. As I said earlier, Portuguese children were found to be irritable and have poor attention, and according to the national association of teachers many fell asleep in the classroom. It is worth noting that this is damaging to young people’s education and that divorce rates increase significantly, so even an experiment has dangerous consequences for many people. On energy consumption, we have heard from Lighter Later that there could be serious energy cost savings as a result of people not needing to consume energy in the evenings. As I stated on Second Reading, this is erroneous, because people would need to turn on appliances on colder, darker winter mornings.
Dr Whiteford
I am concerned about the winter morning issue. Last week my heating in London broke down and I did not even notice because the temperature here is so much higher than it is in more northerly parts. I think people would put on their heating during the coldest part of the night and also when energy is at its most expensive, which will have an impact on not only energy consumption but fuel poverty.
Mr MacNeil
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I know that the cold in Banff and Buchan is balanced only by the warm hearts of its people, and certainly by their good sense in yet again returning an SNP Member. Her points are well made and serious, and indeed they are backed up not only by her own experience, but by evidence from Indiana in the United States and from Portugal. The phones have been busy between my office and Portugal in the last wee while. Mr Rui Agostinho, director of Lisbon’s astronomical observatory, the institution responsible for legal time in Portugal, has said that a company contracted by the European Commission at the time showed that the energy savings gained were ultimately lost with the increase of energy consumption during the morning.
Bob Stewart
Look, we have listened to this all morning. It is clear that we are not absolutely certain what would be the result of a change. Is it not terribly important for us to check by having a trial to determine whether we would actually save more lives and save more energy? All this talk should stop and we should just vote on it now and have the trial.
Mr MacNeil
I admire the hon. and gallant Gentleman’s headlong enthusiasm, but we must reflect before plunging ourselves into 15 months of misery. It can be seriously argued that the change in the late ’60s and early ’70s cost lives, because the rate of road accident deaths did not go down as quickly during that period as it did in subsequent years. If I have to repeat myself again and again before that is understood, I will do so. If we disregard such a serious fact and run to a trial, surely we are putting people in danger.
Mr MacNeil
Many people would welcome the study for a number of reasons, and that organisation would welcome it because it would enable it to get the data. I am just saying that it looks as if the period for getting the data would itself be dangerous.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Is not the obvious answer to the Minister that the Government could carry out a study any day of the week they felt like and do not need an Act of Parliament to do so?
Mr MacNeil
I thank the hon. Gentleman for a good point, well made.
Although some organisations might want the data to be gathered, the unfortunate side of gathering it is that the rest of us would be living in a laboratory.
Having seen, from looking at the graph in front of me, the line go down less steeply during the experiment than it did afterwards, and the significant change just afterwards, I cannot commit to an entire 15-month period. Being a reasonable man, however, I have looked on the ROSPA website, and the most dangerous month is November, so we should change the clocks, as my amendment seeks, from the end of October to the end of November.
Mr Tom Harris
The hon. Gentleman shows a welcome, if surprising, flexibility, but does he not concede the principle of the Bill, which is to have a trial period to gather evidence? If he does concede that, we are really arguing only about periods of time, and surely a longer period will enable us to gather more evidence on which to make a long-term decision.
Mr MacNeil
I say that we should have a series of Novembers. As I have said, I am a conciliatory man, and I have extended an olive branch. Rather than plunge areas of the country north of Manchester into darkness for two months a year, with no sunrise before 9 am, I say, okay, there is an ongoing argument for gathering data, so let us gather data in November, the most dangerous month, instead of over five months of winter and for 15 months in total. We could reduce the inconvenience to 20%, and I am fairly confident that, once we introduce those three months, once we have the attendant misery and once we see what comes of that, lighter evenings will not be seen to have such great benefits after all. We will get the taste of the inconvenience without going through the utter misery of an entire winter period.
Bob Stewart
Why is the hon. Member for the islands of Scotland, where I, too, came from once, confident that the month of November will give him the results that he expects? He does not know, and the best way of finding out is to have a flipping trial.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Will you rule on whether the word—if I may utter it myself—“flipping” is parliamentary?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Do you know, I think that that word is on the cusp—a bit. It offended me, a little, but I must say that in the heat of the moment I have heard a lot worse in this place.
Mr MacNeil
If the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), who advocated European harmonisation earlier, curbs his enthusiasm and goes to the ROSPA website, he will find that the month of November is the most dangerous month. It is by studying what ROSPA says that I have introduced the amendment.
Mr MacNeil
If the clocks were to change on St Andrew’s day, giving us an extra hour on that day, we might have a 25-hour St Andrew’s day, which would probably be welcome, and—who knows?—I might get some form of promotion from the Scottish Government owing to my initiative of introducing a longer, 25-hour St Andrew’s day.
I am looking for an opportunity, and the glass is half full. By extending this olive branch, I am presenting a half-full glass and an opportunity for the trial, with the other attendant benefits, but the concern that must be listened to most is the safety concern. It is not dealt with by the data, and it was certainly not dealt with by the graph after the trial in the 1970s. Indeed, the trial may have cost lives, so let us have only a three-month period of danger, rather than a 15-month one.
Mark Lazarowicz
I have tried to take all the amendments seriously and at face value. However, I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that it is odd for his party, which is so keen on the European Union, as indeed am I, to want the change of time to take place on a different date from that in the rest of the European Union, which, as we have heard, decided on a common date for changing time, following the example of the UK.
Mr MacNeil
I hear the hon. Gentleman’s concern, but he is again looking for difficulties, whereas I look for opportunities and solutions in life. As I have said, I do not think that European Union directives should be seen as commandments. Surely it is not beyond the wit of man for European Union directives, which were constructed in a room by individuals, to be amended or improved. Surely the point of European directives—although perhaps experience shows otherwise—is that they should aid and improve our lives. If a European directive is causing difficulty in our lives, we should ask our Government to go to Europe to change it. We could then test out this measure and have some resolution. Rather than having 15 months of misery, changing the European directive could make the period shorter.
Mark Lazarowicz
The issue is not with a European directive. The fact is that the time difference between Scotland and the rest of the UK and Europe would change in October, and then travel and airline times would change again a month later. This is about the inconvenience for travellers, not about a directive or matters of principle.
Mr MacNeil
When the hon. Gentleman mentions Europe, perhaps he should consider a comparison between Paris and London, which are reasonably close to each other geographically. Paris has lighter evenings, but it has a higher accident rate. The factor of daylight does not appear to be the overriding factor in road safety; there are many other factors. The point is made time and again that the extra hour of daylight will be a panacea for road traffic deaths.
Mr Reid
The European directive is important because in the days before it, ferry and airline timetables were full of footnotes about countries changing their clocks at different times. The hon. Gentleman’s amendments are also important in starting a consultation. After the consultation, if the consensus is for the change that he suggests, the Minister could then go to Brussels to negotiate it.
Mr MacNeil
There is eminent sense in the approach of talking, rather than rushing headlong into a miserable trial. That is where the real danger is.
In the period when the clocks were not put back in winter, the decline in the number of road deaths slowed. If last winter we had gone back to the number of road deaths that we had in the winter of the trial period between’68 and ’71, there would have been three times the number of road deaths. We also now have faster cars and more cars on the road. The argument on safety, which is made with an air of moral certainty, has to be taken on and the data must be challenged. I hope that that is what I am doing. I do not like the moralising tone that is sometimes used towards me when I am looking after the interests of my constituents and the interests of young children and their education, particularly as those arguments are eminently challengeable.
Mr Offord
The hon. Gentleman is correct about the causal links in the accident rate. In my time at Barnet council, I oversaw a 40% reduction in the number of people killed or seriously injured. That had nothing to do with light or darkness; it was to do with removing speed humps and reconfiguring road junctions. It was those policies that reduced the KSIs in my area.
Mr MacNeil
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. There is a danger that we will be distracted from the more important road safety issues if we imagine that the extra hour is a panacea. The measures that he mentions are probably far more important than the light at a particular hour, which is distracting far too many people when there are safety measures that need to be used.
I am struck by the fact that road deaths fell by 300 between the winter of 2009 and the winter of 2010-11. Had the moves in the previous Parliament to have lighter evenings during the winter succeeded, a causal link would have been drawn between the lighter evenings and the drop in deaths. As we now know, that reduction in deaths happened anyway, with darker evenings. It is dangerous to make assumptions and links between lighter evenings and deaths on the roads, particularly as the rate of deaths decreased immediately after the study of the late 1960s and the ’70s. Perhaps that study delayed the rate of the decrease.
I move back to energy. The data used to support the changes seem to have a serious flaw. The campaign’s main source of data is 24 studies on the effect of lighter evenings. Of those 24, only six were empirical studies and the rest were simulations. The paper examining them found that 15 studies concluded that there were energy savings. Of those 15, approximately two were empirical studies and 10 were simulations. The odd thing about the simulations is that they showed savings of 0.2% and 2%, and another study showed a saving of 0%. Surely a 0% saving could also be called a 0% loss. The information that we have from Indiana, Portugal and elsewhere shows that energy would be lost, not saved, if the change was made, and there would not be safety gains.
As for tourism, my amendment suggesting that the studies be carried out in November would ensure that it could not benefit from another month of “lighter later”. That would be a perfect compromise for many of us who need to find consensus, extend an olive branch and find middle ground. I fear that an all-or-nothing campaign would yield exactly nothing.
Mr Davey
These amendments address the role of the devolved Administrations, and I therefore think it would assist the debate if I explained how the Bill’s provisions would affect the devolution settlements.
The subject of time zones is devolved in respect of Northern Ireland but reserved in respect of Scotland and Wales. However, as I have said before, the Government believe that the issue requires UK-wide consensus. The Government will consult the Welsh and Scottish Governments fully on any proposed trial or any proposal to make a trial permanent. The Government would not expect to proceed with a trial if, following those consultations, there was clear opposition from any part of the country.
While we are on the subject of devolution I will say that I believe there may have been some confusion in Committee about the position regarding legislative consent motions of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Such a motion is required in respect of this Bill, not in respect of a daylight saving order. The motion is required before the Bill completes its parliamentary passage. We approached the Northern Ireland Administration about taking the matter forward, and the Government’s continued support for the Bill depends upon the legislative consent motion being passed in due course. That will have no effect on the Bill’s provision requiring the agreement of the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister in Northern Ireland, which reflects the point that time is devolved in respect of Northern Ireland.
As I said, the position of the Bill reflects the devolution settlement. Consultation with the devolved Executives is common, and it is appropriate in this instance. It would allow for discussion to take place on the issues involved and on any concerns. Moreover, the devolved Governments are accountable to their legislatures.
Mr MacNeil
The Minister and I discussed this matter back and forward at some length in Committee. Given the measures that he is outlining, would it be possible for the Government here in Westminster to override the wishes of the Scottish Government?
Mr Davey
We have made it clear that that is not our intention, and that we will listen to all parts of the United Kingdom. We would not expect to proceed if there were clear opposition from other parts of the UK. The devolved Governments may wish to put the matter before their Parliament or Assembly, but that would be a matter for them. For that reason, we think that amendment 13, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid), is inappropriate. We consider it a matter for the devolved Administrations.
On amendments 16 and 17, my hon. Friend talked about changing the dates of summer time, but I have dealt with those issues in previous debates.
Philip Davies
The Ministers says that he is determined that this will not go ahead without the agreement of people in Scotland and Wales, as well as Northern Ireland, so why will he not accept that being made clear in the Bill? If that is his intention, he has nothing to lose from making it clear in the Bill. He might be prepared to seek their agreement, but he might move onwards and upwards in the future, leaving someone else in his position, so we need a safeguard to ensure that his successors will adopt the same procedure.
Mr Davey
No.
The Bill also provides for the devolved Executives to be consulted about any proposals to increase the trial period, and their views will be fully taken into account. The power to lengthen the trial will be available from the date of the report, and if the report indicated that a longer trial was necessary, that power could be exercised to lengthen the trial before the devolved Executives gave their view on whether to have a trial. That means that they would know then about the trial’s expected length, so the amendment that suggests otherwise misses the point.
Asking for reports from the First Ministers, as proposed in amendment 38, is neither necessary nor appropriate. The Secretary of State will monitor the effects of the order for the whole country, and is the person best placed to do so, but the First Ministers would, of course, be welcome to submit anything that they might wish for the Secretary of State to consider. It would not be appropriate for the House, through this Bill, to require any report from the First Ministers or to impose any costs on them. After all, they are devolved Administrations.
Mr MacNeil
Would the devolved Administrations have full access to the data on which the report was based? Furthermore, we are getting Government policy from the Minister but I would be much more comfortable if it was written into the Bill.
Mr Davey
Of course, the devolved Administrations will have access to the report and the data on which it was based. That is how the Government have approached the whole issue. We have worked hard to get consensus at this stage, because we want consensus at all stages. I hope that the hon. Gentleman accepts that assurance. I have checked the record of the Committee stage, and it appears that I made it clear on no fewer than 13 separate occasions that the Government would not expect to carry out a trial or make any change if there was clear opposition from any part of the country. I hope that that reassures my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute and other right hon. and hon. Members. It is clear that we want consensus.
Dr Whiteford
I do not intend to take up too much of the House’s time today. I regret that it is so easy to use the procedures of the House to inhibit rather than enable constructive debate on an issue that is so serious, particularly for my constituents in the north of Scotland.
When we debated this matter before, I approached it with an open mind. I thought that after 40 years it was important to consider the evidence, the changes since the last review and possible ways of moving forward. I was keen to speak on this group of amendments, particularly amendments 16 and 17, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil), because I am concerned that exaggerated claims have been made for the outcomes of the Bill. When I looked at the evidence, I found that it did not always stack up: it seemed simplistic; it drew conclusions that could not be attributed to the evidence presented; most of it was theoretical and there was little empirical data; and, above all, it took little account of other attendant factors that might prove critical in the overall picture.
Any policy changes need to be based on the reality of geography, the environment and our body clock, not to put too fine a point on it. The reality for people in the north and west of these islands is that in the heart of winter we have only seven hours of daylight a day at most. People already go to and from school and work in the dark. The question is not just how we use the limited amount of daylight available to us; perhaps more importantly, it is how we minimise the inconveniences of that limited amount of daylight, and of working and living in the dark.
For me, the critical issue and the reason why amendments 16 and 17 are so important is that the dark days coincide with the cold winter months. It is not just the darkness; the cold compounds the effects of the dark. In more northerly parts and on higher ground, temperatures are significantly lower. The coldest time of day is the hours just before dawn, which is exactly when more people will be moving around, going to school or work, if the changes are introduced.
In Aberdeenshire, gritters grit our roads for seven months of the year. They do not do it every day, but from October to April we must protect our commuters from frosty roads, which are undoubtedly dangerous. One thing that has come out of the debate on these amendments and others is that it is hard to attribute road safety to factors involving daylight or darkness. It is much easier to say that a whole lot of other factors have an effect: driver behaviour, road conditions and, above all, weather conditions. These can be treacherous not just for drivers but for pedestrians. One need only look at an accident and emergency department on a morning when pavements are icy to see people with broken wrists, arms and hips. The dangers are real, and they are exacerbated in the hours before daylight when the ice has not yet melted. That is key, and it is why people in my part of the world feel so strongly about the issue. They do not want to expose themselves to more of the same.
Some of the other myths that need to be discussed a bit more include the myth about tourism. The great luxury of being on holiday is that people can get up exactly when they like and do whatever they like. If they are on a holiday involving field sports, they might get up in the middle of the night anyway, to optimise their use of time. By the same token, if they want to lie in until 10 or 11 am, they can.
I welcome the Government’s approach in saying that they want consensus, but as other Members have said, unless there is something in legislation to pin the matter down, it is hard to have confidence in that kind of language. Both the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid) and that tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar—I do not know that I say that quite as well as the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg)—seek those reassurances.
Mr Davey
Will the hon. Lady confirm that in the Bill we have done what the SNP asked us to do? What we said in Committee and in our press releases, and what I have reconfirmed today, goes further than the SNP asked us to, in order to ensure that we represented Scottish interests and got consensus.
Dr Whiteford
I absolutely recognise the progress that the Minister has made. It is good, but we need safeguards. I am not the only person who takes with a little pinch of salt some of Government Front Benchers’ assurances. We would like the issue pinned down in a way that will give us assurances and alleviate some of the concerns of people in Scotland, who face a disproportionate negative impact from any trial that goes ahead. I would like some sort of trial to gather empirical data, and I think that the proposals made are one way to do so without exposing people to unnecessary risk.
Mr MacNeil
Does my hon. Friend feel, as I do, that the safeguards that we are looking for are a way of fixing the goalposts? At the moment, there is a danger—the Minister refused to say that it was not possible—that the Government might renege, change their mind, choose another policy or override Scotland. We just want the goalposts fixed so that we know the terms of reference. Then we could move on quite happily.
Dr Whiteford
That is right, and I agree.
I will conclude my remarks, because I know that other people want to speak. Ultimately, it is a quality of life issue. One thing that struck me after the last debate on the Bill was that a huge number of people from England, mostly older people who remember the last trial, got in touch with me by letter, phone or e-mail. They all said the same thing: “This was a disaster when they did it in the ’70s.” They found it miserable getting up, going to work and delivering things in the dark. People who remember it did not like it. Ultimately, that has to be our arbiter: is this going to be helpful for our quality of life? I know that it is going to impact more on my part of the world than some other parts of these islands. For the sake of our health and well-being, we need to think carefully before messing around with something that might not need to be changed.
Philip Davies
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) on getting her private Member’s Bill this far. She has certainly got much further than I have with any of mine. I think mine got no further than being heavily defeated on Second Reading—largely by my hon. Friends! I also commend my hon. Friend for the way in which she has conducted herself, always remaining in good humour. In common with my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), I think she has great charm; I thought that she was charming only me, so I was disappointed to find out that she had charmed my hon. Friend as well!
I shall speak to the amendments I have tabled in this group, starting with amendment 30, which gets to the nub of the issue. It is similar to the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid), who wanted to ensure that the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly agreed to any trial before it went ahead. My amendment would achieve something similar, but it relates to subsection (4) rather than subsection (3).
As the provision is drafted, we have the curious position whereby we have to
“obtain the agreement of the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister in Northern Ireland”—
something I wholeheartedly support—
yet only
“consult the Scottish Ministers and the Welsh Ministers.”
I have heard the debate and heard the assurances both from the Minister and from my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point that, as far as they are concerned, no trial will go ahead if there is opposition from Scotland, Wales or other parts of the United Kingdom. That is fine: I accept those assurances and I accept their intention. What we have to deal with, however, is what is in the Bill before us, and notwithstanding all the good intentions, that is not what the Bill says.
Mr MacNeil
While our debate has continued, another issue that I had not considered has been brought to my attention—that the provisions are anti-working mothers. A woman, Mrs Marybell Galbraith, who lived in Glasgow with her children in the ’60s, e-mailed me to say:
“My children and myself suffered from this”—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. We are supposed to be debating the amendment tabled by Mr Philip Davies, which has nothing to do with the point that the hon. Gentleman is trying to make.
Philip Davies
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will press on, as I am sure you and others would wish me to do.
If the intention of my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point and the Minister is to get agreement from Scotland and Wales before a trial goes ahead, I fail to see any possible objection to making that clear in the Bill. The Minister said that he had made progress with the Bill in a way that maximised consensus. As far as I can see, consensus can win out. All it needs is for my hon. Friend and the Minister to say that they will accept my amendment so that
“agreement from the Scottish First Minister and the First Minister of Wales”
is obtained before a trial goes ahead. At that point, I can sit down and allow the Bill to progress. I see no reason why this should be a stumbling block, given that my amendment proposes the intention of my hon. Friend and the Minister in any case.
Mr Tom Harris
The Bill is carefully worded so as to respect the devolution settlement. Responsibility for changing the hours is devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly, but it is not devolved to the Scottish Parliament and every piece of legislation that comes before this House must respect the Scotland Act 1998. As a pro-devolutionist, I firmly believe that, but the SNP wants to undermine devolution because it opposes it. The hon. Gentleman should be careful about aligning himself with the separatists.
Philip Davies
I have drawn exactly the opposite conclusion. What the hon. Gentleman says may be true in terms of the niceties of the legislation, but I understand that, like me, he wants to preserve the United Kingdom, and giving an additional safeguard to people in Scotland and in Wales is a much better way of safeguarding the UK than trying to railroad something through against the wishes of those people and using some legal nicety to try to justify that action. That is not a sensible approach.
Mark Lazarowicz
I agree with the hon. Gentleman on this point. It is not separatists who say that they want to give more powers within the existing devolution settlement to the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, and therefore I hope that his amendment is successful.
Philip Davies
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his support, and I am pleased that he accepts that I am trying to entrench the Union and make people in Scotland and Wales feel more part of it.
Philip Davies
I will give way one last time, but then I want to make progress.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I just wondered whether my hon. Friend had noticed the time on the clock, because had the Bill already come into force, the debate would by now have ended.
Philip Davies
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that observation.
My amendment 35 deals with the length of the trial period, which the Bill proposes should be three years. I return to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) made earlier about a city in Kazakhstan that had been built in 15 years; we seem to need three years to conduct this trial but I do not see why it needs to last that long. His amendment 85, in this group, recommends reducing the period to two years, which I would welcome. However, my amendment 35 urges the promoter of the Bill to reduce the trial period to just one year, because we can get a perfectly good flavour of what is going to happen in that time. Of course there would then be the opportunity, if everyone so wished, to carry out another trial beyond that period. I do not see why we should be boxed into having a three-year trial, as that is totally unnecessary.
My amendment 38 deals with the monitoring of the effect of the order. Clause 6, to which my amendment relates, provides for a situation in which the Secretary of State monitors the effect of the order “throughout the period” and then lectures all the parts of the United Kingdom—the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly—on his conclusions and, therefore, what he thinks should happen. My amendment merely asks that reports are also sought from the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly, so that they can equally make it clear what their report on the trial is. Rather than just having the Secretary of State laying down the law, it is only fair that we let those parts of the United Kingdom not only have their say but be seen to have their say, which is not the case at the moment.
Amendment 40 would delete clause 8, which relates to the power to increase the length of the trial period. I think that a trial period of three years is on the excessive side, so I obviously find it nonsensical to have a clause that then gives a power to extend the trial period. The period is already too long, so we should delete any clause that gives a power to increase it; we really should be able to make a decision after three years.
I repeat that I am most concerned about amendment 30, but I am aware that amendment 40 may not be accepted—I do not know whether it will be or not. If it is not accepted by my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point and the Minister, two further amendments I have tabled—amendments 42 and 43—would provide the House with an alternative. Basically, before an order is made to extend the trial we should either gain agreement from the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly—along the lines of the amendment promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute—or we should obtain agreement from the First Minister in Scotland, the First Minister in Wales and the First Minister in Northern Ireland, whichever option the House prefers. It seems to me that if we want to obtain the agreement of the Scottish Government or Ministers or the Welsh Government or Ministers before we start a trial, and if we want a clause that gives the power to increase the length of the trial, we must go through the same process to ensure that we are not railroading something through against the wishes of those people.
I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute was satisfied by the Minister’s response on amendment 13.
Philip Davies
He is a much more generous man than I am, and I am sure that he has taken the Minister’s word at face value. I would be the first to accept that I am more cynical. I have seen evidence of Ministers saying one thing with the best intentions in the world and then it did not quite turn out that way. I heard Ministers say that they were going to have a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, but when it came to it they did not. I do not want just to rely on the word of the Minister, although I accept the good faith in which he made his point. He might move on to pastures new, however, and the Bill does not mention the Government’s view. It says what the Secretary of State will do, not the Government. The Minister might well be expressing the intention of the current Secretary of State, but before we get to any trial we might have a different Secretary of State who holds a different view and comes from a different party.
Mr Reid
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. For the avoidance of doubt, I want to put it on the record that I am delighted to accept the assurances that my hon. Friend the Minister gave. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) is concerned that this might not apply to a future Secretary of State, but my hon. Friend the Minister gave his assurances on behalf of the Government, so they apply to any future Minister in the Government.
Philip Davies
That is very helpful. I feared that my hon. Friend was going in that direction, so I would certainly wish to press amendment 30 to a vote as it encapsulates the flavour of the lead amendment and would make that requirement clear in the Bill.
The Bill says that the Secretary of State
“must consult the Scottish Ministers and the Welsh Ministers.”
That is slightly ambiguous, and I hope the Minister will confirm that the Scottish Ministers and Welsh Ministers are the Ministers in the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament and not the Ministers in the Scotland Office and the Wales Office. It would be perverse if the Secretary of State was consulting another Secretary of State to get something through that the Government wanted. I hope that the Government would be consulting a different body—the Scottish Parliament or the Welsh Assembly—but that is not entirely clear from the Bill or from the glossary of terms at the back of it.
Mr MacNeil
The hon. Gentleman’s remark about the European Union reminded me of how things change in politics. I can remember in the last Parliament the Liberal Democrats walking out of the Chamber on the question of an in/out referendum. Now, the people who led that have found themselves in government and things have changed. Things could change again, which is why we need guarantees rather than intentions. We need the goalposts to be fixed so that we know exactly where we all stand.
Philip Davies
I agree and I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman clearly supports my amendment. Our job in this House is to ensure that we have proper safeguards in place, based not on wishy-washy assurances but on provisions on the face of the Bill. We do not want to find that when we have passed something we have been sold a pup on an issue that is too important to the future of the United Kingdom for a decision to be based merely on assurances. I do not want to go on as I do not want to test the patience of the House or of my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point because she has conducted herself so well and I do not want to scupper the chances of our debating the next group of amendments. On that basis, I shall leave my comments there, but I want to make it clear that if the my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute withdraws his amendment I would like to pursue my amendment 30, which is the second amendment in this group.
Mr Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36), but the Deputy Speaker withheld his assent and declined to put that Question.
Mr Nuttall
I will not detain the House for long, Mr Deputy Speaker. We have had a long debate already on this group of amendments and I am conscious that a closure motion has already been requested, but I want to deal with some specific amendments in this group. Before I do so, let me reiterate the thanks I expressed to my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) when the House considered the money resolution. She has shown exemplary courtesy and great determination to ensure that the Bill got to this stage. As I said in that debate, although I did not vote to curtail debate on Second Reading, I supported the Bill on Second Reading and I intend to vote today for amendments that will strengthen the Bill and help it to achieve its objectives. I appreciate that many people would like a trial to take place and I take cognisance of that regardless of my personal views about whether it is a good or bad thing permanently to change the time in this country.
Leaving aside for the moment lead amendment 13, because my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid) has indicated that he is prepared to accept what the Minister has said about it, I hope that we will be given the opportunity to divide on amendment 30. At a time when the whole question of Scottish independence is rising up the political agenda in a way that it never has before, some of the Bill’s provisions seem somewhat perverse. I can well imagine separatists in Scotland seizing on clause 4(4), which clearly treats Scotland, and indeed Wales, differently from Northern Ireland. I see no reason why we should not accept amendment 30 so that agreement is required from the First Ministers of Scotland and Wales.
Mr Chope
Does my hon. Friend accept that an alternative way of dealing with this problem so far as Scotland is concerned would have been for the Government to have moved an amendment to the Scotland Bill, which is still going through the other place, to make this issue a devolved matter for Scotland in the same way as it is devolved for Northern Ireland?
Mr Nuttall
That would, indeed, have been one way of dealing with this matter.
Although I support amendment 30, I strongly oppose amendments 35 and 85. I am often in favour of the amendments of my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) and, indeed, those of my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch (Mr Chope), for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) and for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), who tabled amendment 85. On this occasion, however, I am not in favour of their amendment, because I think we need a trial period of three years. If the trial is successful and the change proves to be of benefit and to achieve all that the Bill’s proponents say it will achieve, that will lead to a permanent change in our time system that will affect every person in the country. Given those circumstances, it is only fair and reasonable that the trial should be for a minimum of three years. So I would oppose amendments 35 and 85 and stick to the wording of clause 5(1), which provides that the trial period be three years.
Amendments 16 and 17 highlight the fact that even our time is a matter that the European Union has felt it necessary to interfere with, and it has done so by means of European directive 200/84/EC.
Mark Lazarowicz
Why does the hon. Gentleman feel obliged to bring anti-Europeanism into everything? I do not think the directive was opposed by the UK; I think the UK was one of the key supporters of a directive, so why suggest that it was forced upon us by Europe?
Mr Nuttall
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. My view is that we should not be told what to do on any matter by the European Union. I have a very clear view on such matters. Many people in this country are not aware of the existence of the directive or of its effect. It is another example of the way in which the tentacles of the European Union extend into areas of life into which many people do not realise they extend.
There will be difficulty in ever achieving the aims of amendments 16 or 17, but in any event I think we should stick to the existing arrangement for changing the clocks in March and October, despite the fact that that it means that my birthday is fairly often affected by the change in the clocks in the springtime when, as I think is the case this year, we jump on one hour and I lose an hour of my birthday.
It has been suggested that amendment 38 would result in extra costs being incurred. I am not so sure that it would. I strongly support the amendment. All it calls for are reports from the First Ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. They could simply write a brief letter saying, “Yes, we have considered the matter and everything is in order. There is no need to consult us any further.” Amendment 38 is sound and it would be sensible for it to receive the support of the House and be included in the Bill.
I oppose amendment 40. As I said about clause 5, in view of the importance of the matter, it makes sense to have a trial period of an appropriate length. If an increase in the length of the trial period is necessary, so be it. Let us have that increase.
Philip Davies
That is a perfectly respectable view for my hon. Friend to hold, although I might disagree. The question is about the basis on which we decide that we need a further period of trial. We seem to be leaving it to the Government and the Secretary of State to decide. We surely cannot have that, or the trial will be extended endlessly, which surreptitiously makes it a permanent fixture.
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend makes a good point, but I notice that clause 8(4) states:
“An order under this section is subject to affirmative resolution procedure”,
so there would be some democratic oversight of the use of the power, which most people would find satisfactory.
Those are my thoughts and that is how I will be voting.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is unable to do that. We are now voting on whether the question be now put, and if the decision of the House is that the question be now put, that is what I will do. If the question is negatived, the hon. Gentleman might have an opportunity later in the debate to withdraw his amendment.
There seems to be some delay in the No Lobby. I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate it.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the Aye Lobby.
Philip Davies
I beg to move amendment 44, page 4, line 4, leave out paragraph (b).
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 73, page 4, line 6, leave out paragraph (c).
Amendment 74, page 4, line 8, leave out subsection (2).
Amendment 75, page 4, line 12, leave out subsection (3).
Amendment 46, page 4, line 12, leave out ‘negative’ and insert ‘the affirmative’.
Amendment 48, page 4, line 23, leave out clause 11.
Amendment 9, in clause 11, page 4, line 24, leave out ‘during’ and insert
‘up to three years after’.
Amendment 20, page 4, line 28, after ‘Ireland’, insert
‘the Scottish Ministers and the Welsh Ministers’.
Amendment 21, page 4, line 29, leave out paragraph (b).
Amendment 51, page 4, line 29, leave out from ‘must’ to end and insert
‘obtain agreement from the Scottish First Minister and the First Minister of Wales.’.
Amendment 15, page 4, line 29, at end insert—
‘(2A) The Secretary of State may not make an order under this section unless resolutions supporting the order have been passed by the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly.’.
Philip Davies
I will try again with this group to persuade my hon. Friends of the merits of the amendments, the purpose of which is not to damage the Bill or prevent it from progressing, but to strengthen it. Lest anyone be in any doubt, some of the amendments in this group are similar to amendments in the previous group. I should make it clear that, as with the previous amendment that we have just voted on, if any of my amendments in this group were accepted at this late stage, I would be happy to support the Bill enthusiastically, because my amendments would, without doubt, strengthen the Bill. However, we have to deal with the Bill as it is and not base our decisions on the assurances that we have received from the Minister.
Amendment 44 would delete clause 9(1)(b). The clause relates to the end of the trial, and I have to say in passing that there seems to be a slight contradiction in the wording of the Bill—it may well just be a legalistic point. The clause is entitled “The end of the trial”, but the first sentence beneath the title states:
“The Secretary of State must, during the trial period, do one of the following”.
I was slightly confused about that, because it seems to give the Secretary of State the power to do one of the things listed at any point in the trial period, not just at the end as suggested by the clause title. Perhaps the Minister might be able to explain why that is the case.
Clause 9(1) states that the Secretary of State must do one of the things listed. The first is to make an order to abandon the trial—that makes sense. The second, in paragraph (b), is to make an order during the trial period to advance the time by one hour permanently. Given that the Bill regrettably does not contain the safeguards that I and other hon. Members sought in the previous group of amendments, I wish through amendment 44 to prevent the Secretary of State from making such an order. I do not believe that is appropriate without the safeguards that we have discussed previously, which I will discuss again under this group of amendments.
Amendment 46 relates to clause 9(3), which states:
“An order under subsection (2) is subject to negative resolution procedure.”
All the way through the Bill I have been pleased to see that each provision is subject to the affirmative procedure, but clause 9 appears to me to be the only part of the Bill that is subject to the negative procedure. The amendment is merely intended to change that to the affirmative procedure, which is standard in the rest of the Bill. Given that that procedure has been happily accepted in all other parts of the Bill, I would like to think that the House would be very happy to see it applied to clause 9 too.
The other amendments in this group that relate to clause 9 are amendments 73 to 75, which were tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope). I am sure that we all look forward to him speaking at great length about why he introduced them. It seems to me—I am sure he will correct me if I am wrong—that amendment 73 would simply delete clause 9(1)(c). He may well be able to explain why he felt that was so important.
Amendment 74 would delete clause 9(2). I must say that as ever, my hon. Friend was far more alert than me in seeking to do so. It appears to give the Secretary of State wide-ranging powers without any great safeguards. I suspect that is why he has sought to delete that subsection, but of course he may well have had better reasons than that. I am sure he will be able to tell us what they were.
Amendment 75 would delete clause 9(3), which is the subsection setting out that the clause is subject to the negative resolution procedure. My hon. Friend may well have wanted it deleted because he, too, was unhappy with that. I would like to think that my amendment 46 would make his amendment 75 redundant.
Mr Chope
I hope to have the chance to address my amendments, but I will say now that the reason for amendment 75 is that it is consequential on my amendment 74. If amendment 74 succeeded and subsection (2) were left out, there would not be any need for the provisions of subsection (3).
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am pleased that he has cleared that up.
I am afraid that, through no fault of my own, time is pressing, so we do not have much time to go through these amendments or give them the kind of scrutiny that they deserve—but I shall press on. Amendment 48 would delete clause 11, which gives the Secretary of State the power permanently to advance the time by one hour. I seek to delete the clause partly for the reason that I gave earlier. Given that the amendments in the previous group were not accepted, we should not be giving the Secretary of State this power based on a trial period that I do not think has adequate safeguards built into it. To be helpful, however, I tabled amendment 51 to get around that problem. If it were accepted by the Minister and the promoter of the Bill, I would be satisfied and perfectly happy to support the Bill, because it would provide adequate safeguards.
That touches on amendment 15, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid), which is similar to his amendment 13 in the previous group. Amendment 51, too, relates to the power to advance time by one hour permanently and not just for the trial period. If we are to do it permanently, it is not only important to obtain the agreement of the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister in Northern Ireland but essential to obtain the agreement of the Scottish and Welsh First Ministers. To go ahead with a permanent time change without obtaining the agreement of the First Ministers would fatally undermine the future of the United Kingdom. We cannot be seen to railroad the people of Scotland and Wales into something that might be against their wishes and hope that the United Kingdom will stay together. Clearly, it would no longer be sustainable. Whether people thought it appropriate to obtain the agreement of the Scottish or Welsh First Ministers for a trial period is one thing—that is what we voted on in the previous group of amendments—but it must be clear to everybody that if we believe in the United Kingdom, we must obtain that agreement before permanently changing the arrangement. That is what my amendment 51 would do.
My hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute has taken a different tack, as he has done throughout. His amendment 15 would do pretty much the same as mine, except that he seeks to obtain the agreement of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly rather than just the Scottish and Welsh First Ministers. I would be satisfied with either amendment. In fact, I prefer his amendment. I think that the requirement to get the agreement of the Parliament or Assembly as a whole would provide a much better safeguard than the obligation to seek only the agreement of the First Minister. I commend him for having come up with a far better amendment than mine, and I am happy to fall on my sword to pursue his agenda.
Amendments 20 and 21 have been tabled by our friends from the Scottish National party, the hon. Members for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) and for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford). If I read the amendments correctly—I am sure that they will correct me, if I am wrong—they seek to do exactly what I and my hon. Friend seek in our amendments: to put in place extra safeguards for the consultation of Scotland and Wales. Of the 11 amendments in this group, therefore, four or five would have the same effect. As for the future of the Bill, I must emphasise that it cannot progress unless we make it abundantly clear that we have the endorsement of people in Scotland and Wales, and not just through a consultation, which is what it provides for at the moment. People who are consulted can then simply be ignored. That is totally and utterly unacceptable.
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Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Is there any way of recording in Hansard that my Metal Theft (Prevention) Bill was objected to by the Conservative Front-Bench team and the hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands)?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I think that the hon. Gentleman has just done that.
Pension Funds (Fiduciary Duties)
(12 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jon Cruddas (Dagenham and Rainham) (Lab)
I wish to make a few comments on the fiduciary duty of pension fund trustees. It is just over a year since the Minister and I stood here to discuss the issue of responsible investment by pension funds, and in that debate we focused particularly on transparency for fund members. So to begin with it is worth taking stock of a few developments that have occurred since we last discussed these issues.
First, in recent weeks, the notion of “responsible capitalism” has risen to the top of the political agenda. A cross-party consensus has emerged that shareholders must do more to tackle irresponsible corporate behaviour such as excessive top pay. Secondly, we have entered 2012, the year of auto-enrolment, a process that will ultimately see millions of workers begin saving for a pension through the capital markets. Thirdly, casting our minds back to the autumn statement, we have seen the Government turning to pension funds as a source of capital to fuel the economic recovery through infrastructure investment.
If we put all that together, it becomes clear that the way pension funds invest is no longer, as the Minister put it in our last discussion, “a minority sport”, but a matter of acute national concern. Although much has been made of the rise of foreign investors, UK pension funds still make up 13% of the UK stock market, with insurance companies that provide pension products making up another 12%. So it is vital that this huge pool of capital is invested responsibly in the long-term interests of pension savers. Unfortunately, as a report published last year by responsible investment charity FairPensions showed, current interpretations of the law may hinder that objective. Fiduciary duties—our main legal mechanism for protecting those who entrust their money to someone else—do not apply consistently across the pensions market. Worse still, they are generally interpreted as forbidding pension funds from raising their sights beyond quarterly returns. Far from protecting savers’ long-term interests, that view may in fact be damaging to them.
Clarification of this seemingly obscure and technical area of the law could unlock positive change in a range of areas: supporting jobs and growth; ensuring decent pensions; and underpinning the shift to a more responsible, resilient capitalism. The Prime Minister has indicated that the Government want to give shareholders more powers to block excessive pay deals. That is obviously welcome, but more searching questions need to be asked about how shareholders are using the rights they already have. Figures released by PIRC—Pensions Investment Research Consultants Ltd—last week showed that since the introduction of the advisory vote on pay 10 years ago just 18 remuneration packages have been voted down, despite the fact that pay has risen out of all proportion to shareholder returns. Why has there been such reluctance to use these powers?
Most pension funds do not exercise voting rights themselves, but delegate to fund managers, whose duties are unclear. FairPensions’ report argues that fund managers have fiduciary duties under common law—a view shared by the Law Commission—but that is not generally accepted by the industry. That means that the strict duty to avoid conflicts of interest is not being applied to the people actually making the decisions. That has real implications for the way in which votes are cast by City fund managers who have business relationships with the companies in which they invest.
A recent article in Butterworths Journal of International Banking and Financial Law cited anecdotal evidence of
“corporate or investment banking staff overtly or subtly pressuring their asset management colleagues to avoid antagonising their clients by voting against the CEO’s pay arrangements.”
Meanwhile, pension funds are often labouring under the misapprehension that their fiduciary duty prohibits them from taking an interest in Bob Diamond’s bonuses, for example, when, of course, properly understood, that is very much part of that duty.
The pervasive myth that fiduciary duty begins and ends with maximising returns leads many funds to neglect intangible factors—excessive pay or poor environmental standards—even though they may well affect the long-term returns that matter most to pension savers. The misconception seems to put some trustees off being active owners of the companies in which they invest, notwithstanding efforts through the UK stewardship code to encourage them to do so. Still less do funds believe that they can take account of the moral outrage felt by their members over excessive pay deals.
Such interpretations continue to hold back pension funds’ potential to play their part in a more responsible capitalism. To put it simply, we cannot have responsible capitalism if the capitalists think that the law prohibits them from acting responsibly.
I want briefly to return to the subject of transparency, which we talked about a year ago. Making companies more accountable to shareholders will not be enough to tackle “crony capitalism”: shareholders must also become accountable to the ordinary savers whose capital they invest. Among other things, that means much greater transparency about what is being done with our money. At the moment, if I want to know how my pension fund voted on Barclays’ remuneration report, for example, it is not obliged to tell me. In his response last year, the Minister promised to raise the issue with the chair of the Pensions Regulator. I would be grateful if he updated the House on the results of their conversation and on any further developments.
Narrow interpretations of fiduciary duty risk holding back not only the responsible capitalism agenda but the economic recovery. Pension savers have a clear interest in the health of the UK economy. It affects not only the growth of their investments but their economic well-being more generally as UK citizens, jobholders and taxpayers. The Treasury has picked up on that and observed that obvious common interest when encouraging pension funds to invest in UK infrastructure. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury said in a recent speech to the National Association of Pension Funds:
“Your investment in the UK economy can drive economic change and that change should generate more stable and sustainable returns, benefitting Britain’s pensioners.”
The same logic can be applied to investment in the small and medium-sized companies that are the engine of future job generation in our economy, but that is not the logic that underpins pension fund decision making in practice. We are back to the mantra of the fiduciary duty to maximise returns, which dictates that return must be sought wherever it is found. Given a direct choice between two competing investments, there is no reason for pension funds to invest in the UK rather than, say, China. Indeed, most funds would say that the law legally obliges them to choose the latter if the risk-return profile is even marginally more attractive.
That reduces fiduciary duty to a mathematical calculation that obliges trustees to chase the best return and ignore all other considerations, rather than enabling a more common-sense approach, using their discretion to determine how their capital can best be put to work for the benefit of pension savers. Given the choice, many pension savers might well want to see their savings invested in British industry or green infrastructure but, under conventional interpretations of the law, their views are irrelevant. Fiduciary duty, which exists to protect savers, risks becoming a missing link when it comes to translating our savings into productive investment activity.
This is emphatically not about hijacking pension funds’ capital to serve government ends; that could be a dangerous road to go down. It is all about allowing them the discretion to take a broad and enlightened view of what is in the beneficiaries’ interests, rather than prescribing an approach that might not serve savers in the long run. Let us not forget that it was today’s interpretation of the law that saw pension funds pile into triple-A-rated shares in banks whose risky activities ultimately decimated pension fund value. If funds had been encouraged to think about the sustainability of those returns, rather than just the share price, their beneficiaries might have been better served in the long-run.
That brings me to the third area in which policy makers ignore debates about fiduciary duty at their peril—auto-enrolment. The Pensions Regulator estimates that between 5 million and 8 million people will be newly saving, or saving more, as a result of the 2012 reforms. Many of those people will be low-paid workers and there is a huge responsibility on the Government to ensure that their savings are responsibly stewarded and deliver a decent retirement income. This means ensuring that fiduciary standards of care can be applied across the pensions market.
In Committee on the Pensions Bill, the Minister rightly noted the importance of taking a “holistic approach” and not creating “unevenness” by putting
“conditions that are not imposed on other investment vehicles on pension schemes”.––[Official Report, Pensions Public Bill Committee, 14 July 2011; c. 330.]
However, there is already unevenness between trust-based pension schemes and contract-based pension arrangements, as the latter are not subject to fiduciary duties and the governance requirements that go with them. The average saver may struggle to see the difference between those two types of arrangements, but the legal niceties mean that savers are subject to completely different legal protections depending on the type of scheme their employer chooses. Last year the Minister’s Department consulted on “regulatory differences” between trust and contract-based pension arrangements and I hope he will look at this issue of governance because it is the single biggest regulatory difference and carries the biggest danger of regulatory arbitrage.
A struggling employer could be forgiven for wondering why they would want to set up a trust-based scheme with all the governance implications that would entail when they could simply choose an off-the-shelf product from an insurance firm. However, there are obvious reasons for thinking that such a decision might not serve the best interests of their employees. This is not merely a theoretical objection. I understand that FairPensions is due shortly to publish research showing that the absence of clear obligations does indeed create a “governance gap”. Can the Minister indicate whether his Department is looking into this issue and, if so, what might be done to ensure that a level playing field for all pension savers can be established?
The overall point is that the misapplication of fiduciary duty is clearly a significant challenge to the Government’s vision for a strong, responsible economy and a generation with a savings culture. Conversely, a renewed understanding of fiduciary duty offers an exciting opportunity to reshape our economy for the better. The FairPensions report recommends there should be statutory clarification of fiduciary duties along the lines of directors’ duties under the Companies Act 2006 to make it clear that pension funds can consider a range of factors beyond quarterly returns such as the impact of their investments on the wider economy, environmental and social issues and their members’ ethical views. It also recommends that the Department for Work and Pensions should produce guidance for pension fund trustees on the interpretation of their fiduciary duties.
When those recommendations were debated through a probing amendment to the Pensions Bill, the Minister helpfully put on record his view that
“it is not the duty of trustees simply to maximise short-term returns.”––[Official Report, Pensions Public Bill Committee, 14 July 2011; c. 329.]
In other words, the measures proposed by FairPensions that I have talked about would amount to clarification rather than a radical departure from existing legal principles in terms of trustees’ duties. This might prompt some to ask whether statutory definition is really needed if the underlying legal principles are sound.
Some pension funds already take an enlightened approach to their fiduciary responsibilities. The National Employment Savings Trust —NEST—is emerging as a beacon of best practice when it comes to responsible investment, viewing it as part of its responsibility to undertake shareholder engagement and to integrate environmental and social issues into its investment analysis. Similarly, the Strathclyde pension fund offers an excellent example of how pension funds can make investments that add genuine, sustainable economic value for their members. It recently announced a £100 million new opportunities fund to invest in job creation in Glasgow with the proviso that it will invest only in businesses that pay the living wage. However, those examples are very much the exception rather than the rule. The conventional interpretation of the law is highly conservative, and this is reflected in the legal advice received by the vast majority of pension funds. It is difficult in practice to see how this problem with the interpretation of the law can be overcome other than with an explicit clarification of the law.
It is also worth noting that even pension funds that take an enlightened view of their fiduciary duties still appear to believe that the law restricts their room for manoeuvre in this area. For instance, one investment officer recalls asking for legal advice on whether, when voting on a hostile takeover bid, they could consider the fact that some of their beneficiaries might lose their jobs. The answer was no; they could consider only the price that they would be paid for selling their shares. In other words, far from being a counterweight to predatory activities, even the most enlightened pension fund may feel legally obliged to be complicit in these predatory activities. For all these reasons, express clarification does seem to be necessary.
To be clear, this is not a question of diluting the fiduciary duty to seek the best outcome for beneficiaries. Nothing in these proposals would change the fundamental principle that fiduciaries must act wholly in the best interests of their beneficiaries. Rather, it is about making fiduciary duty work better in today’s complex financial markets. Indeed, we must seriously ask whether fiduciary duty as currently understood is doing its job properly.
From 2002 to 2007, pension fund payments to intermediaries rose by some 50%, while returns collapsed to an average of 1.1% per year. If the main purpose of fiduciary duties is to make sure that savers come first and that agents do not profit at their expense, these figures suggest that something is badly wrong. It is not a question of imposing new regulatory burdens on pension funds, but rather the opposite: clearing away perceived legal barriers and restoring common sense to the law.
FairPensions’ proposals are aimed at creating an enabling environment, freeing trustees from the fear that they may face legal liability if they depart from received wisdom about how they must invest. This is true of both the recommendation for statutory clarification, and the recommendation for DWP guidance.
In relation to guidance, I tentatively suggest that the Charity Commission’s recent update of its investment guidance for charitable trustees might prove a useful departure point. It has helped to clarify that fiduciary duty is not a set of handcuffs that prevent trustees from considering anything but financial return. In particular, it has sought to give comfort by stating that
“if trustees have considered the relevant issues, taken advice where appropriate and reached a reasonable decision, they are unlikely to be criticised for their decisions or adopting a particular investment policy.”
I understand that the Minister’s officials have been engaging with FairPensions since the publication of their report about the possibility of guidance, and I wonder whether the Minister might update the House on any progress that his Department has made on this recommendation.
Of course, I understand that the Government might wish to wait for the results of the Kay review of UK equity markets before making firm commitments. I understand that fiduciary duty forms part of Professor Kay’s remit, and that it has been discussed extensively during his first phase of consultation. If Professor Kay does make recommendations on this issue, the Government will clearly need to consider those alongside the recommendations already made in the FairPensions report.
Overall, therefore, it would be helpful if the Minister gave some general indication of whether there is enthusiasm in Government for reform of fiduciary duty, and whether, if it proves to be consistent with the findings of Professor Kay’s inquiry, he will work with colleagues in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to take forward this agenda.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)
May I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas) on securing this debate, which raises issues that I know are of real concern for many people? As he pointed out, it is just over a year since we were both here debating the same subject. One of my colleagues who observed our last debate said that she felt that agreement was breaking out violently all over the place. I suspect that we may be in similar territory today, because I have a great deal of sympathy with the points that the hon. Gentleman raised.
To be clear from the outset, I should say that the coalition Government fully support the highest standards of corporate governance and ethical behaviour. We agree that a socially responsible investment strategy is a sound choice for pension schemes, and we recognise the importance of the issues raised by FairPensions. I welcome the fact that the points made by the hon. Gentleman chime with the emphasis that both the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister recently placed on responsible capitalism. Although not directly related to the duties of pension funds, the call by my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister for much greater corporate transparency and the unlocking of shareholder power indicate the coalition Government’s intention of addressing some of the wider concerns raised by the hon. Gentleman today.
I would like to emphasise the significant contribution that FairPensions has made to inform the debate on these issues. I have had a number of discussions with it and, as the hon. Gentleman said, its director is now a member of our trustee panel and I joined her for a meeting earlier this week. I hope that he will be reassured that that perspective is very much in the room when these issues are considered.
The hon. Gentlemen touched on the important role of the investments of pension funds in fuelling economic recovery in the UK. As he rightly said, the Chancellor announced in his autumn statement that the Government have signed a memorandum of understanding with two groups of UK pension funds to unlock additional investment in UK infrastructure, including the National Association of Pension Funds, the Pension Protection Fund, to which I will return, and a separate group representing pension plans and infrastructure fund managers.
The Government are also establishing an infrastructure investment forum with the Association of British Insurers—the hon. Gentleman mentioned the role of insurance companies—which will explore ways to ensure that capital markets continue to provide an efficient and attractive source of debt finance for infrastructure projects. The Government will target up to £20 billion of investment from those initiatives, which we hope will lead to a step change in the use of pension scheme assets to fuel our economic recovery.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the FairPensions March 2011 report on fiduciary duty. I entirely agree that that has done a good job in raising awareness about some of the important issues relating to the role of pension trustees in the governance and conduct of firms, and the role of advisers. One of the concerns consistently raised by FairPensions is that the extent of a trustee's fiduciary duty is frequently misunderstood. As he said, I pointed out in the Pension Bill Committee, and am happy to say, albeit in front of a slightly more select gathering on this occasion, that I am absolutely clear that fiduciary duty does not simply mean that someone must maximise short-term investment returns at all costs. I am also clear—again on the record—that those duties do not prevent trustees from considering environmental, social and governance practices. Indeed, as part of the discharge of their fiduciary duty, it would be perfectly reasonable for pension trustees to ask searching questions about the environmental, social and governance practices of those firms their scheme was investing in. There is no reason why trustees cannot take ethical and governance issues into account when making investment decisions, solely subject to their making sure they comply with the legislative requirements relating to scheme investments, and the provisions of their scheme's statement of investment principles.
I come now to the hon. Gentleman’s point about 2012 and the direction in which we are travelling. We have seen only recently the closure of the final salary scheme of a FTSE 100 company open to new members—another mark in the move away from defined benefit pensions—and we are moving into a world of auto-enrolment, which will not exclusively be into contract-based defined contributions, but clearly many of the providers will be structured in that way, and I want to come on to that. As he says, between 5 million and 8 million people will be saving for the first time, or saving more, in a workplace pension. Against this backdrop, the hon. Gentleman’s points about how pension fund assets are managed, and more directly the fiduciary duty of those managing the assets, are very important. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments about NEST being a beacon of best practice, and I will certainly look at the examples he gave of the Strathclyde pension fund and the recent Charity Commission guidance, which sounds helpful in this regard.
Looking beyond NEST—obviously the “t” stands for “trust”—clearly a key difference between trust-based occupational pension schemes and contract-based schemes that are used for automatic enrolment is the fact that occupational schemes have trustees who have a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of the members. As he said, last year the Government issued a call for evidence on the regulatory differences between the two sorts of pension schemes. While some respondents, such as the hon. Gentleman, were concerned that there was no equivalent protection for the investments of members of workplace personal pension schemes, others pointed out that many providers of workplace personal pensions—contract-based—do have alternative arrangements in place, such as governance committees. It does seem to be the case that many employers are increasingly moving towards arrangements for employee engagement through the establishment of such management or governance committees.
Research by the Pensions Regulator has found that approximately half of employers with a contract-based scheme do have some form of governance arrangement over and above what is legally required. These range from a very informal review on an ad hoc basis by employer representatives, through to more formal arrangements involving a wider range of parties, which may involve employee representatives. I do recognise that that does not wholly equate with a trustee's fiduciary duty, since there is no obligation on an employer to establish such a committee, and where they do exist there is a wide variation in their terms of reference, membership and powers.
In May last year, my Department issued detailed guidance on default funds in auto-enrolment to ensure the quality of a DC pension scheme’s default fund. This will be vital to the success of automatic enrolment as most individuals will not be making a choice about their investment fund and will be enrolled into a scheme's default option. Reflecting on what the hon. Gentleman said, that gives us an opportunity for scale. If the vast majority of people end up in the default funds, and we can get the default funds right, there is potential for good practice to be spread quite widely.
The guidance sets out the standards that pension schemes, advisers and employers should follow to ensure that the default fund is of sufficient quality. Those standards cover charges, governance, risk management, review and communications. The guidance was developed with employers, the pension industry, consumer groups and advisers to ensure not only that it is user friendly but that it strikes the right balance between prescription and allowing flexibility.
On the question of charges, evidence suggests that the vast majority of schemes have appropriately low fund charges, but there is always a possibility that charges could rise to inappropriately high levels in the future. That is why we took powers under the Pensions Act 2008 to regulate and set a charge cap, should charges become inappropriately high, given that even relatively small differences in charges can have a big impact on someone’s pension pot. The hon. Gentleman will know that we extended those powers in the Pensions Act 2011, for which I was responsible.
In the meantime, other initiatives are progressing. Hon. Members might recall that the Investment Governance Group, an industry group jointly sponsored by the Pensions Regulator, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Treasury, has developed principles for best practice in investment governance of work-based pension schemes. That guidance was published shortly before our previous debate and comprises six principles covering the three stages of investment governance: governance structure, investment choices and monitoring, and communications. It is available on the Pensions Regulator’s website. The aim of the principles is to encourage better investment governance and decision making by all stakeholders, and to provide a practical checklist to benchmark a scheme’s investment governance processes against best practice.
Two additional pieces of work from that group might be of interest to the hon. Gentleman. First, the Pensions Regulator is working closely with the National Association of Pension Funds to produce a report on defined benefit case studies, and considering investment strategies and approaches to ethical investments. Secondly, the National Association of Pension Funds is assisting the regulator in the preparation of a video podcast on the governance of small schemes, which I think will consist of at least two downloads. I understand that both those products should be ready for publication soon.
Much more recently, on 6 December 2011, the Pensions Regulator published a press release entitled “Six principles for good workplace DC”. This set out the regulator’s principles for good design and governance of DC schemes, and invited the industry to take part in a dialogue on the principles and the detailed criteria that sit underneath them. Publication of those high-level principles is the next step in the regulator’s ongoing engagement with the pensions sector to improve standards of DC provision and ensure that the sector is ready to support auto-enrolment.
I want briefly to mention the Pension Protection Fund. Someone told me recently that, in five to 10 years’ time, the PPF will be the biggest pension fund in the land, which is a slightly depressing thought. It is an operationally independent arm’s length organisation that was set up by Parliament. Like NEST, the investment strategy of the Pension Protection Fund is an example of the Government seeking to promote best practice in investment strategy, in this case through a non-departmental public body. In its statement of investment principles, published in November 2010, the PPF board makes it clear that it will act in the best financial interests of the fund and its beneficiaries in seeking the best return that is consistent with a prudent and appropriate level of risk. The board believes that it must act as a responsible and vigilant asset owner and market participant, and take account of the environmental, social and governance factors that can have an impact on the long-term performance of its investment. There is therefore a stress on long-termism and active engagement by this major owner of corporate Britain. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will also welcome the fact that the PPF board is a signatory to the United Nations principles of responsible investment, a set of best practice principles on responsible investment.
The hon. Gentleman asked about discussions with the Pensions Regulator. When we debated these issues in December 2010, he asked whether I would be prepared to raise the issue of transparency with Michael O’Higgins, who was then the incoming chair of the Pensions Regulator. I can confirm that I have had a number of discussions with the chair in the past 12 months, and that I have drawn attention to the issues raised in the FairPensions report from March 2011, which have been echoed by the hon. Gentleman today.
Surprisingly, trustees are not obliged to disclose information about investments or their investment decisions to scheme members. It seems odd, given that it is our money, that we have so little ability to find out what is being done with it. The Pensions Regulator is therefore working with my Department to consider ways of introducing more transparency into schemes, and ways in which members could be better updated with information on their scheme. I shall be meeting the chair and the chief executive of the Pensions Regulator later this month, when we will discuss the issue further. I venture to suggest that it will be slightly higher on the agenda following the hon. Gentleman’s repeated interventions, for which I am grateful to him.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the Kay review, which is obviously crucial. Professor Kay is examining UK equity markets and their impact on the long-term performance and governance of UK business. His independent review will consider a number of the issues that have been raised today, and its report is due later this year. Professor Kay kindly came to speak with me about the review on 3 November 2011, and I took the opportunity to raise the concerns raised by FairPensions about fiduciary duty and short-termism. I am hopeful that he will consider them in the course of his work.
The Kay review is examining the extent to which equity market participants are excessively focused on short-term outcomes, and what actions might be taken to address such problems if they exist. It will explore the incentives, motivations and timescales of all participants in the equity markets, as well as the fiduciary duties of pension funds and their role as long-term investors. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we will look very seriously at what Professor Kay has to say. I do not want to pre-empt that at this stage, but I will work closely with my colleagues in other Departments on any issues raised by the review that need to be considered further.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his persistence. This is an important issue, and I hope that he will continue to raise it.
Question put and agreed to.