Daylight Saving Bill
Debate between Alan Reid and Christopher Chope(12 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
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.
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 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 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.