Ending Seasonal Changes of Time (Reasoned Opinion)

Michael Tomlinson Excerpts

Monday 12th November 2018 General Committees

[The Chair]

For all but the very experienced hands who know about it, perhaps I should explain the procedure. First, I will ask whether a member of the European Scrutiny Committee wishes to make a statement for no more than five minutes on the Committee’s decision to refer the document for debate. The Minister will then make a statement for up to 10 minutes. A short period for questions to the Minister will follow; I stress that they should be questions, as in Question Time, not an attempt to have a debate. After the questions, there will be a short period for debate. Our sitting is destined to end no later than 7 pm, although I should make it clear that we are not obliged to sit until then—we can certainly end earlier. It is a quaint process.

Does a member of the European Scrutiny Committee wish to make a statement?

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I will abide by your strictures and endeavour not to keep us here until 7 o’clock.

The proposed directive would end seasonal clock changes across the European Union. At this delicate moment in the Brexit negotiations, let me briefly set out why the European Scrutiny Committee recommends that the House issue a reasoned opinion on the proposed directive.

Today’s debate is not about the merits of seasonal clock changes, on which there are undoubtedly a variety of views across the House—personally, I very much welcomed the extra hour in bed a few weeks ago. It is about whether the EU is justified in ending seasonal clock changes throughout the EU and preventing individual member states from deciding whether to reintroduce them. It relates to the very essence of sovereignty and reminds us of the Brexit debate in the run-up to the referendum in 2016. There is a risk that the EU might come across as a former Prime Minister described it:

“too big, too bossy and too interfering.”—[Official Report, 4 June 2014; Vol. 582, c. 24.]

In his “State of the Union” speech in September, Jean-Claude Juncker announced:

“Clock-changing must stop. Member States should themselves decide whether their citizens live in summer or winter time. It is a question of subsidiarity.”

However, in reality the proposed directive gives member states little more than a stark and binary choice between permanent summertime or winter time all year round. According to the European Commission’s timetable, that choice must be made in 2019.

A reasoned opinion would signify that the House does not consider that the proposed EU legislation complies with the principle of subsidiarity, under which the EU should act only where there is clear added value and where similar benefits cannot be achieved by member states acting at a national, regional or local level. The reasoned opinion proposed by the European Scrutiny Committee is annexed to our report; should this Committee agree, the House will be asked formally to approve it so that it can be sent to the EU institutions by tomorrow’s deadline. The House of Lords agreed it on 24 October.

Why is there haste to legislate now? It may be partly due to the European Commission’s wish to respond to a resolution of the European Parliament in February that called for a review of the existing summertime arrangements, but also underlined the need to maintain a unified EU time regime, even after the end of biannual time changes. The Commission launched a public consultation in July that gave a choice between two options: preserving the status quo and requiring all member states to change their clocks at the same time, or abandoning seasonal time changes altogether. Some 4.6 million citizens responded, and a large majority—84%—indicated that they opposed the current system of changing the clocks twice a year.

The European Scrutiny Committee considers that the large majority is not as impressive as it may first appear. First, three member states—Germany, France and Austria —accounted for nearly 85% of the total responses, meaning that it can hardly be seen as genuinely representative or provide a sufficient evidence base for the views of all member states.

Secondly, the consultation presented only two possible options. The Commission did not seek views on a third option allowing each member state to decide for itself whether to keep seasonal time changes, and limiting EU action to co-ordinating the dates. The European Scrutiny Committee considers that member states are far better placed than the EU to weigh the impact of seasonal time changes on different regions and to determine where the overall national interest lies.

Finally, the European Commission accepts that the choice of time zone is a sovereign matter for each member state. That means that the proposed directive would not, and indeed cannot, remove all time differentials between member states. The European Scrutiny Committee cannot, therefore, see an internal market justification for the EU to remove the ability of individual member states, now or in the future, to apply seasonal time variations.

The United Kingdom will leave the European Union in March 2019, but the proposed directive matters because the United Kingdom may be under an obligation to implement EU laws that take effect during any transition period. For that reason, it is important that the House of Commons continues to make its voice heard while it still has the means and opportunity to do so.

With your indulgence, Mr McCabe, as this is likely to be the last ever reasoned opinion in the House of Commons, I place on record my thanks, and those of the European Scrutiny Committee, to the Clerks, the Clerk advisers and the whole Committee team, who advise Members with such skill, dedication and expertise. I urge Members to support this reasoned opinion.

[The Chair]

I call the Minister to make the opening statement.

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[The Chair]

We have until 5.37 for questions, although we do not have to take all that time. We do not want speeches or statements.

[Michael Tomlinson]

I am grateful to the Minister for the clarity she has given in her statement. As she knows, the United Kingdom had one of the lowest response rates to the consultation. Does she have any information on how many responses were submitted from the United Kingdom, and how much support there was for each of the options presented?

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I do not have the particular detail of how many respondents there were from the UK, but I am more than willing to share that afterwards with my hon. Friend.

[Kelly Tolhurst]

My statement clearly laid out the Government’s concerns. First, the proposed timeframe is not acceptable. Secondly, we are not proposing to change summertime. Thirdly, it should be for member states to make such decisions, but this directive starts from a position of harmonisation. Those are just some of the many concerns.

[Michael Tomlinson]

Does the Minister know, or could she find out in due course, whether the Government intend to carry out their own consultation, given that we might be obliged to implement the directive if it sticks to its current timetable?

[Kelly Tolhurst]

Currently we do not intend carry out a consultation. We are working with other member states to block the proposal. Obviously, we will respect the implementation of EU rules while we are still a member but at this moment in time we do not want to consult because we are fundamentally against the proposed clock changes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kelly Tolhurst]

On specific guidance, as I have already said, at this moment we have alerted devolved Administrations to this proposal. We are working to block the proposal and a decision on guidance has yet to be made. I have written to the devolved Administrations to ask for their opinions; I have not issued any guidance.

[Michael Tomlinson]

Further to the question asked by the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent about his preference on what the time changes should be, does the Minister agree that it should be up to this House to debate each of those proposals, and that that is the whole point of this reasoned opinion? It is not for the EU to dictate to us what our time arrangements should be; it is up to this House to debate them fully in due course. That is the whole point of issuing the reasoned opinion.

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. I agree that this House should decide whether we are to change our clocks. That is why the Government’s position is that, as it stands, we have no plans to change the clocks for summertime. That is why we are working with other member states to try to effectively block this proposal in the European Commission.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bill Esterson]

Well, what an interesting set of sub-questions. We made some progress and got answers in the end; I thank the Minister for that. I will offer just a few additional thoughts.

I was surprised that the Minister said that the Government had not carried out an impact assessment. I gently suggest that they might need to do so because, on the basis of her other answers, we do not appear to be in a position to stop the Commission issuing the directive if it decides to go ahead. That might be helpful to the whole country, whether on the island of Ireland or not.

Opposition Members were trying to be helpful with some of our questions. The questions my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent asked about the safety of putting the clocks forward and daylight saving time are actually part of the argument to the Commission. They make the point well that we have concerns about what the Commission is proposing. We were being helpful.

There are some health studies about this matter, and I hope that the Government will look into them. A Nobel prize was awarded to chronobiologists this year, and additional work will be carried out to indicate the health benefits or otherwise of changing the clocks—whether the clocks should change or not. I hope that the Government look at that. One issue is disruption to the circadian rhythm—did I pronounce that correctly? [Hon. Members: “Yes.”] Good; I got that one right. The issue is whether moving the clocks helps or not. What is the impact on the circadian rhythm and health? These are important points.

There are points about the impact on the economy. When we were initially looking at daylight saving time and double summer time, for example, we were in a different era. The importance of the agricultural sector in this country and the impact on agricultural workers were of a different nature, but we still have to consider that. We still have to consider the impact on postal workers, on children going to school and on commuters in the early mornings and whether there is an increase in the number of road traffic accidents when the clocks change. These are all important points that need to be taken on board.

We can start to look at evidence from those countries that have made the change that the Commission suggests. The one piece of evidence that my researcher was able to find relates to Iceland, which has been in a position of removing daylight saving time for some years now. Concerns were raised, in the one English language commentary we found on the matter, about the gap between solar and social time and teenagers dropping out. There is a whole other debate to be had on whether teenagers should go to school later in the day, but that is for another Committee on another occasion.

However, there are concerns about health and about the impact on workers. There is some evidence of small energy savings to be had, whichever way round we go.

[Michael Tomlinson]

The hon. Gentleman raises some interesting points about whether we should change the clocks and consider any safety aspects, as was suggested earlier, but this debate is about whether we should issue a reasoned opinion and whether we agree that it should be this House that determines that, or the EU. What is his position on that?

[Bill Esterson]

This debate is about those things, but it is interesting that the documents that we were given cover in some detail all the points that I have raised—without the background, it is very difficult to go forward. I was about to move on—the hon. Gentleman’s intervention was quite timely—to quote paragraph 1.16 of our papers, where his own Committee quotes the Commission, which

“acknowledges, ‘evidence is not conclusive as to whether the benefits of summer time arrangements outweigh the inconveniences linked to a biannual change of time’, leaving room to doubt that a fully harmonised approach is necessary.”

The reasoned opinion that we give back must be as strongly evidenced as possible, if we are to have as much influence as possible. In the absence of certainty of evidence that a change is a good thing, we want to be as strong as possible, along with our allies and partners across the European Union, in influencing the Commission’s final decision.

My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow was absolutely right to push as strongly as she did the points about what happens in Ireland. She might also have mentioned Gibraltar, of course. It would be very difficult to see differences on either side of those two land borders. These points should go back to the Commission in as strong a manner as possible.

We are due to leave the European Union on 29 March, as the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole said—I know that he is very passionate that we do leave on that day. As things stand, we are leaving on 29 March. I hope that there will be a good deal, not the inadequate one being put forward by the Prime Minister—it has little to no support from anybody in her own Cabinet, let alone anywhere else—but we absolutely must not have no deal. If we do get a deal, there will be a transitional period. If this goes ahead, we will have to be ready for it, as with so many requirements coming from the European Union. I hope that the Government will do the work necessary to prepare us for that eventuality.

These questions were raised by the European Scrutiny Committee and are set out in paragraphs 1.19 and 1.20. The Minister is well aware of the concerns raised today. I hope that she will go away and ensure that the Government do that preparatory work and carry out their own impact assessment. Perhaps she will write to members of the Committee with her findings as soon as possible, so that the work we have done today is followed up as thoroughly as possible.