Accidents: Costs

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord German

Monday 31st October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the noble Baroness has highlighted a very serious and important problem. She will know that in the European Union context the Commission has focused very strongly on products that may prove unsafe if sold wrongly or if manufactured or fitted wrongly. The kinds of safety incidents that she refers to could well fall into that category and work is ongoing in that area. However, I take on board the figures that she has so graphically supplied and will feed them back to my department.

[Lord German]

My Lords, the 1968-71 experiment with moving the clocks around produced some evidence about accidents. In the current debate, since we all enjoyed an extra hour in bed yesterday, I wonder whether there is any concrete evidence about the reduction in accidents that moving the clocks around supplied, given that in 1968-71 we were also introducing the drink-driving laws that somehow compounded the evidence that was provided for us.

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend raises a point that we have often debated in this Chamber. He is, of course, right that single/double summer time would put clocks one hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time in winter and two hours ahead in summer. Any change to the current system of British Summer Time would have wide-ranging implications, and those implications would have to be carefully considered in all parts of the UK, probably, in terms of the costs and benefits associated with them.