Daylight Saving Time

Lord Rogan Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox]

I am aware of the campaign and in particular the Elizabeth Garnsey report, to which my noble friend has referred. It is important to stress that evidence on this issue has not always pointed in the same direction. In particular, it is suggested that the change would save a significant amount of CO₂ emissions. However, work undertaken in 2005 by the Building Research Establishment for Defra indicated that putting the clocks forward an additional hour in winter and summer would lead to a net increase in carbon dioxide emissions corresponding to around 1 per cent of total UK emissions.

[Lord Rogan]

Does the Minister agree that British business, especially manufacturing, would greatly benefit from the introduction of this time change by affording us at least two if not three extra hours in a trading day to communicate with our mainline European customers and suppliers?

[Baroness Wilcox]

I have been in this House a few years now and I have heard the arguments for and against doing this. Always we come back to the same thing: certain parts of the country would benefit while other parts certainly would not because the time zone would not be helpful to them. There would be an impact on the City, for example. As we are at the moment, the time works very well for us. We are there when Asia is online and we are still there when the United States starts trading. I am not sure that the arguments for and against are as clear as we would like them to be.