Summertime (Scotland)

Ben Bradshaw Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harris]

That is a valid point. It will have to be met head on by the supporters of the campaign, because there is no doubt that in the 1968 trial, although road deaths throughout the vast majority of Scotland reduced significantly, there was a small increase in the number of road deaths in the far north of Scotland. Of course that has to be taken seriously, and I will say as much later on, but let us remember that when it comes to generating publicity on a particular campaign, it is far easier for the media to publicise deaths and injuries on the road than to publicise deaths and injuries that were avoided.

We, as parents and—all of us, I think—as former children, know that when children head out to school in the morning on, say, a 10-minute journey, they allow almost exactly that amount of time for the journey. The return journey, however, is a different matter. It may sound counter-intuitive to suggest that children will be in a bigger hurry to reach school in the morning than to get back home again in the afternoon, but it makes perfect sense. Children adopt a more relaxed approach as they head home, perhaps taking diversions to friends’ homes, popping into a shop or chatting with friends at the school gate.

We see exactly the same phenomenon in our working lives. I saw it as a Transport Minister and when I worked in transport planning before being elected to the House. The evening rush hour is being extended every year and becoming longer and longer, as flexible hours mean more people leaving the office later, more people perhaps heading to the pub or to the shops on the way home, and evening buses and trains carrying the same total number of commuters on their return journeys as they did in the morning rush hour, but over a significantly longer period.

However, too much time in this debate—too much attention—is focused on the journey to and from school. In any one year, children in Scotland spend as much time travelling between home and their friends’ homes, and walking to and from various places of recreation, as they do travelling to and from school. Indeed, during the very darkest mornings in December and early January, children are on holiday from school and do not have to make those journeys at those early times, but they still make journeys later in the day, when the light is fading and they are far more at risk from passing cars.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend consider the remarks of the former Prime Minister, our right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), who, at a regional Cabinet meeting in my constituency earlier this year, told a representative of the tourism industry that he saw real benefits of £3.5 billion in the move that my hon. Friend advocates and thought that there were merits in the idea of a three-year trial? I hope that my hon. Friend will feel that those comments are helpful to his campaign in Scotland.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Mundell]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. Indeed, the objections are not just from Scotland.

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has set out clearly the position of the Government as a whole, including the Scotland Office: no change can be made without the consensus of the whole United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland as well as Scotland. There can be no specific policy in relation to Scotland, because consensus across the UK is the key factor. Let me make it clear that, as the hon. Member for Glasgow South alluded to, the Government are unequivocally opposed to any differentiated time zone for Scotland.

[Mr Bradshaw]

Why has the Prime Minister—like the leader of the Liberal Democrats, I am afraid—changed his position on that issue since the general election? He said quite clearly before the election, including to tourism representatives in the south-west, that he favoured the change. Indeed, the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), then the shadow Tourism Minister, explicitly said that he favoured the move. Is this just another broken promise by the coalition?

[David Mundell]

I certainly accept that the former shadow Tourism Minister is a powerful advocate of the case, but what the Prime Minister said then, and what he says now, is that we welcome an informed debate in all parts of the UK. As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor might say, on this issue we are all in it together or not at all.