Baroness Billingham
Main Page: Baroness Billingham (Labour - Life peer)
Baroness Billingham
My Lords, the Minister has been most encouraging and we welcome what he has said today. However, I should like him to comment on two small points. First, is he aware that implementing a daylight-saving scheme would be relatively inexpensive? That is an important factor. Secondly, given the bleak outlook for jobs, surely it is exquisitely attractive to have an industry that offers 80,000 new jobs. I should have thought that any Government would find that hard to resist at this time.
Lord Shutt of Greetland
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that. She is right that such a scheme could do a great deal. However, it is a question of the will of people, including the will of people in this House. I have done a bit of research on this. Back in 1967, 49 Members of this House decided to go for something called British standard time but 13 Members opposed it. The legislation also went through the Commons. However, on 2 December 1970, just under 40 years ago, by 81 votes to 366 the Commons decided to put an end to the experiment. The interesting point is that, of those 366, 32 are now in this place, so it would be very interesting to see whether minds have moved. The campaigners could start with those 32.