Daylight Saving Bill

Damian Collins Excerpts

Friday 3rd December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Harris]

I shall return to my speech, having taken many interventions.

I ask only that the Government take an objective, informed decision based on the best available evidence so that all the questions can be looked at properly before a decision is taken. If the opponents are correct and the evidence in favour of change is not as clear-cut as many organisations and experts suggest, or if the move would unfairly disadvantage any country of the United Kingdom, my Bill would not require anything further to happen. Surely, therefore, no one need fear the study proposed in the Bill. Even the most vehement opponent of change cannot reasonably object to this modest request. However, if I and the supporters of this measure are right that there are clear benefits to the whole—I stress, the whole—of the United Kingdom, it would be wrong not to go ahead with a proper trial.

Although I am certain that hon. Members have had ample opportunity to consider the arguments in favour of the measure, I will rehearse them briefly. First, every single road safety organisation tells me that the measure would save 80 lives on our roads every year, mainly among children under 15 and other vulnerable road users. If a transport disaster of that magnitude occurred in our country and the Government knew that it would happen every year—year in, year out—but proposed to do nothing about it, there would be a public outcry.

However, there remains a kind of race memory that the winter-only trial of GMT plus one between 1968 and 1970 led to increased road deaths, particularly among children going to school on dark winter mornings, as has been mentioned. That persistent myth has hampered the debate ever since, and it is simply not true. Extensive research by the Transport Research Laboratory found that, far from causing accidents—the view that, sadly, led to the experiment being abandoned in panic—the change resulted in an astonishing 1,120 fewer people being killed or seriously injured during the affected hours.

The principal reason behind those figures is that more accidents occur in the busy afternoon rush hour. There are currently three times as many accidents, particularly involving children, between 3 and 6 pm than between 7 and 10 am. In the mornings, we tend to travel directly, we leave just as much time as we need to get to our destination and the roads are less busy. In the afternoons, we make much more complicated journeys and people are much less attentive—children, in particular, feel liberated after leaving school. That is why moving an extra hour of daylight into the dangerous, busy peak time for travel would be beneficial for road safety. As I have said, that applies to an even greater extent in Scotland and, despite the conventional wisdom, I believe that Scotland stands to benefit the most from this measure.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that another myth that has grown up around the daylight saving issue is that the country clearly rejected the experiment when it ended in the ’70s? In fact, the Home Secretary of the time presented polling to the House to show that the public were in favour of the switch.

[Rebecca Harris]

Yes, Reginald Maudling presented evidence to the House to show that a majority of people in the country were in favour of the change. As often happens, the people who are against something, nervous about it or frightened of it speak more loudly than those who are in favour. We have all experienced that. Unusually, the campaigners for this change have been the louder voices.

--- Later in debate ---

[Albert Owen]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his help. I will develop the argument that what we are asking for is a full review over three years, so that we can have all the up-to-date evidence that we need to make a conscious decision in this House. That is an important point, because in many ways the academic research done by Cambridge university was narrow in its remit. I was disappointed by some of the answers of the academics who had looked at the issue, although I was very much encouraged by the National Grid representative, who talked about the energy savings that would be made immediately—now, today—on the basis of the evidence and the data available to National Grid.

Many of the benefits in the shoulder months relate to the reduction in electricity used of some 1,300 MW. I pushed the National Grid representative on what that would mean. It would mean one power station in the United Kingdom closing for one hour a day during the shoulder months. That would mean a significant amount of electricity being saved, alongside the savings in CO₂, which would be in the region of 500,000 tonnes, and—I emphasise this point again because it is important—a reduction in what consumers pay of some £200 million.

[Damian Collins]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there could also be a benefit from reducing the need to import energy? We have an electricity link from my constituency of Folkestone and Hythe to France, from which we need to import electricity at peak times just to meet the demand.

[Albert Owen]

Yes, and I did mention energy security. Indeed, we can break that down and talk about microgeneration, whereby individual houses and community buildings send electricity back to the grid. That is all part of the wider argument about saving energy that I am putting forward. In moving the motion, the hon. Member for Castle Point made strong arguments about other aspects, which I will touch on, but the energy saving argument is the big difference between now and the ’60s and ’70s, and it is one that we should push.