Daylight Saving Bill

Neil Parish Excerpts

Friday 3rd December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davey]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I have taken the trouble to speak to the Irish ambassador to London to ask for his views and those of his Government on this issue, and I want to put those views on the record.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

Forty years after the last experiment, is it not right for the Government to consider the fact that the population has changed? We have an older population who will benefit from the extra hour. Farming has also changed hugely, with much more milking being done and cattle being kept inside, so there is no reason not to change the time. I am surprised that the Government are not more supportive of the Bill.

[Mr Davey]

I urge my hon. Friend to be a little patient, but I would say that if he had listened to my remarks, he would know that I was agreeing with those exact points.

I wish to move on to one of the major benefits of daylight savings. It is considered that moving to central European time would prevent many serious road accidents and fatalities, and I totally accept that good evidence is available. ROSPA produced a paper in support of the private Member’s Bill tabled by the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr Yeo) in 2008, which showed that 80 fatalities a year could be saved. Department for Transport figures corroborate that statistic. In Scotland, evidence from the Transport and Road Research Laboratory after the 1960s experiment showed that road casualties had declined by 17% in Scotland, compared with 11.7% across the whole of Great Britain.

Even in the matter of road safety, however, we should remember that other factors are at play. Our streets are becoming ever safer, and we have one of the lowest rates of road deaths and serious injuries in Europe. The 1968 experiment was conducted at the same time as the first drink-driving laws came into force, and they will have made a material difference. It is possible that other initiatives to improve road safety have had a far more beneficial impact on road safety than the time change would have done, and it would also have had a far greater impact on wider society. For example, improvements in driver behaviour, car safety, road designs and speed restrictions will have contributed to a fall in casualties.