Daylight Saving Bill

Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Nick de Bois

Friday 3rd December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr MacNeil]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He makes a point that I perhaps have not fully thought about, but it is worth putting on the record.

I have a serious problem with the proposition that lighter evenings will automatically increase the tourism money coming in to the various isles and decrease obesity—that is, that if it is lighter outside, people might want to get up and go out and exercise. There are various other reasons for doing that, however.

On the environmental aspects of changing the clocks, I have a problem with the arguments that changing the clocks will foster a decrease in energy use. We have not been able to find any domestic studies that use empirical data, but we have found studies from the United States that recorded the use of energy during daylight saving time. In 2008, a study was conducted in the state of Indiana. Indiana has 6.4 million inhabitants and, geographically, it is probably approximately the same size as the UK. Its GDP is comparable with that of this country. Indiana is interesting for this argument because certain counties were able to use daylight saving time whereas others were not.

The study found that household costs and energy consumption increased owing to people heating their homes in the colder winter mornings, doubtless wanting to rise to a warmer home to counter the feeling of darkness and gloom outside. The empirical data from Indiana say something different from the data we are hearing.

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman cites many trials and much evidence in his speech, and he clearly feels passionate about this. By not voting for this Bill, however, is he not denying the one thing that really matters, which is for this provision to be tested in the United Kingdom for the people of the United Kingdom?

[Mr MacNeil]

If we could conduct a trial without going through the inevitable misery and changing back, I would agree. I am tempted to suggest that the hon. Gentleman conduct his own personal trial this winter and get up an hour earlier. He could come back to me in the spring and tell me how the experience went. I could see him in the autumn again and see whether he wanted to go through the trial once more. I wager that he would not, but I shall leave that suggestion as it is.

Darker mornings will mean sunrise at 10 am for many people. Indeed, London’s sunrise will be at a quarter to 9. Let us consider some of the sunrise times in the UK this morning, starting in Scotland. In Aberdeen, sunrise was 8.26 am, with a length of day of seven hours and five minutes. In Edinburgh, it was 8.22 am, with a length of day of seven hours and 20 minutes. In London, it was 7.46 am, with a length of day of eight hours and seven minutes—almost an hour more daylight than in Aberdeen, due to the effect of latitude. That would leave London with sunrise at a quarter to 9. Let me draw attention to the west coast of Scotland. Stornoway had sunrise at 10 to 9 today, which would of course become 10 to 10. Tobermory, which some people might think is quite close to Stornoway, has a difference of 13 minutes in its sunrise, which is 13 minutes earlier, and sunset is nine minutes later.