Daylight Saving

Baroness Knight of Collingtree Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

The noble Lord makes a very good point. The difficulty in Scotland, if we went for single/double summer time is that it would be getting light at 10 o’clock in the morning in some places. Time is a devolved matter for Scotland and for Northern Ireland, but the Government are clear that there should be one time zone throughout the United Kingdom.

[Baroness Knight of Collingtree]

My Lords, is it not the case that when the matter was previously investigated, no change was made mainly because of the danger to young children going to school on dark mornings on roads that had not been cleared of snow and that sort of thing? When considering this issue, let us not forget that there is a strong case to look after small children going to school?

[Earl Attlee]

I absolutely agree that there is a strong case for looking after children on the roads, but our calculations tell us that in road safety terms the change would be positive. I assure the House that every time this is raised, Ministers such as me ask officials all the searching questions but we come up with the same answer that it would be very difficult to do a trial and that there are very serious objections to it.