Daylight Saving Bill

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Friday 3rd December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) on introducing the Bill. She may have drawn accusations that she is a barbecue-obsessed southerner but, considering today’s temperature, that seems irrelevant. I thank the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) for his comments about the work of the Energy and Climate Change Committee, which has recently considered the issue. I am impressed to see a significant proportion of the members of the Environmental Audit Committee, on which I sit, present. It too appreciates the potential benefits of the measure.

The 10:10 Lighter Later campaign has certainly been very active. Little did I know that when I met a member of that campaign during the general election, I would be standing here in December debating the issue. I even managed to convince a number of my constituents to spend a significant proportion of their time phoning hon. Members yesterday to exhort them to stay for today’s debate. I thank all those people from my constituency who did so—I spoke to a good number of them yesterday afternoon. I particularly congratulate those who have struggled through the snow to be here today.

None of the individuals, businesses or organisations that are supporting this examination and analysis are supporting change for change’s sake. What we want is a cross-departmental analysis of the potential benefits of a new, updated trial, so that any evidence is based on modern statistics and current thinking and analysis, rather than on information from the late 1960s. Much has changed since the last trial—in particular, farming technology. I come from a reasonably rural constituency and have family links to the farming industry, so I know that that measure was obviously of concern. However, the agricultural community has rowed back from its earlier position. At worst, it is now neutral on the subject, and some members of the farming community are positive about the possibility of a new trial.

Importantly, as a member of the Environmental Audit Committee, I know that there are new considerations that were not uppermost in people’s minds in the ’60s and ’70s. I was pleased to hear the Committee’s Chairman, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley), make the point about the impact that the measure could have on CO₂ emissions. It has massive potential benefits for the UK’s carbon footprint and, indeed, for individual domestic energy bills. More than a 2% reduction in CO₂ emissions during winter is a significant improvement. I am sure that we in this House are all committed to meeting challenging environmental targets. That could be done, via this measure, at no cost.

I admit that Romsey and Southampton North is about as southern a constituency as there is, and I am convinced that we will have some interesting and enlightening contributions from some of the more northerly Members shortly. However, there are many options to consider: balancing the time change around the winter solstice; having a permanent change to British summer time, so that my constituents who remain concerned about the difficulties of having to change their clocks twice a year could avoid it; and the proposal advocated by Lighter Later, which would involve a move to GMT+1 and GMT+2. All those ideas are in the mix and are worthy of proper analysis.

If such a measure was good enough for a coalition Government during the second world war, it is good enough for a coalition Government to examine now.