Devolution (Time) Bill [HL]

Baroness Wilcox Excerpts

Friday 1st July 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Baroness Wilcox)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Tanlaw, for bringing this matter for debate to the House today and for making a terrific speech, clearly explaining the reasoning behind wanting to see the measures of his Bill come into force. The issue is very much a live one and closely related to the ongoing debate on summer time and the movement of the clocks—a subject that the noble Lord has made his own. I have often answered Questions from him before.

Opinion on the issue of summer time in general and the movement of the clocks has remained divided for some time. Evidence has been produced on both sides of the argument for moving the clocks, demonstrating the economic benefits and highlighting the cost. The issues are indeed complex. We discuss this at a time of year when it is light before all but the most nocturnal of your Lordships are awake. Yet in winter, when the impact of changing the clocks is most felt, a change to the current arrangements by moving the clocks forward would mean—as we have heard so many times—trading off darker winter mornings for lighter summer evenings. There is no question that the impact of darker mornings would be most significant in Scotland.

The measures of the noble Lord’s Bill differ slightly from those that we have seen in your Lordship’s House on previous occasions. Most of the Bills on the issue of summer time have tended to talk about moving the clocks within the UK to align with central Europe—that is, to put the clocks forward an hour of where they are currently. The noble Lord stressed that his Bill is only on the right to choose. We recognise that the provisions are designed to give Scotland and Wales the right to choose but, as my noble friend Lord Addington asserted, if they exercise that right then the United Kingdom could end up with different time zones, the consequences of which we do not underestimate. Rather than addressing the merits of moving the clocks, which the noble Lord has set out at length on many previous occasions, the Bill simply proposes to devolve responsibility for changing the clocks to Scotland and Wales—just as it is currently devolved in Northern Ireland.

As we know, responsibility for time in Great Britain is a reserved matter under the current devolution arrangements. As noble Lords may be aware, when the Scotland Bill was debated in the other place, an amendment was tabled by Angus MacNeil MP designed to achieve the exact same outcome that the noble Lord is trying to achieve here today—that Scotland should have its own responsibility over which time zone it should sit in and that that power should not sit with Westminster. In the debates on that amendment, it was felt that not only did the proposal run contrary to the spirit and effect of the Scotland Bill but it also went against the Government position of the whole of the UK remaining in the same time zone. As such, the amendment was heavily defeated.

The Government do not support the devolution of responsibility for time to Scotland and Wales, and the possibility of different time zones operating within Great Britain. The crux of the matter is quite simply that we are far too small a nation to have, within the British Isles, more than one time zone. There are obvious practical difficulties in having separate time zones for both Wales and Scotland. Transactions between Scotland and England, and between Wales and England, would take on an unwanted complexity unnecessary for so small a country. The level of disruption caused should not be underestimated were the three countries to end up on different time zones. Those who live on the borders with either Wales or Scotland would be significantly disrupted if commuting between countries on a daily basis. Implications for travel in general should also not be considered lightly.

On the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Tanlaw, on Northern Ireland, although it has the power to choose its own zone, in recent conversations with our colleagues there—which are always ongoing—they have no desire to change their time zone to be out of sync with the rest of the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister has made it quite clear—this position was also explained during Second Reading of the Daylight Saving Bill in the other place—that Great Britain as a country should remain in a united time zone. As such, it would be inappropriate for me to express anything other than reservations about this Bill, given that it is not in line with that policy.