Daylight Saving Bill
Debate between Tobias Ellwood and Angus Brendan MacNeil(13 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) on being successful in the ballot. I wish she had chosen something else but, nevertheless, she has perhaps chosen her specialist subject. As a result, some of us are here fielding or batting in the opposite direction.
I am happy once again to be debating the subject of changing the time when the clocks go back in the United Kingdom. I think this is the third time I have participated in such a debate since being elected in 2005. The matter seems to return to the House fairly regularly. As hon. Members may assume, I will not argue in favour of the change, which will have a disproportionate effect on my part of the world. That is not to say that I am resistant to change. I am happy for there to be a compromise. I would like the period of winter time to be changed from 21 weeks to perhaps 10 weeks. Rather than seven weeks before mid-winter and 14 weeks after mid-winter, there should be five weeks either side of mid-winter. That might be a compromise that we could live with.
Moving to central European time would be a mistake given our longitude. That fact is exacerbated by the latitude differences within the United Kingdom, which mean that the further north we travel, the shorter is the day in winter. There is a great argument for symmetry either side of the mid-winter day. I hope that we will try to change that. However, European directive 2000/84/EC seems to tie our hands to a time change on the last Sunday in October and the last Sunday in March. That directive seems to enshrine the asymmetry.
However, it is only a directive. Given the strength of feeling in this place about matters European, one would think that some Government Members, who are no longer in opposition, as they were when I last spoke about this, would realise that it is not a commandment, but a directive, and perhaps do something about it.
The Bill does not seek to move the daylight, as some would have us believe: in fact, it wants to move us, the people, into the night. I ask anybody watching, wherever in the UK they may be—I am sure that, as the hon. Member for Castle Point said, people will be riveted to the parliamentary channel—to imagine getting up an hour earlier today.
Mr Ellwood
The hon. Gentleman and I have sparred over this issue for a number of years. I think that he inadvertently misleads the House, because in Glasgow, for example, sunset today takes place just six minutes after it does here in London. The statistics for his own constituency suggest that schoolchildren are going to school in the dark and returning home in the dark. The clock change would allow at least one of those journeys to be made in the light. Were this Bill to go through, his adult constituents would benefit from 160 more hours a year after work and children would benefit from 84 hours of daylight after school. That is a useful statistic for his constituents to be aware of.
Mr MacNeil
If the hon. Gentleman’s argument is for one hour, why does he not extend that logic to two, three, four or eight hours? Perhaps we could have our daylight at 4 o’clock in the afternoon when we have all finished work so that we had more leisure time at the end of day. That would be the logical conclusion of his argument.
The crux of the matter is that people getting up an hour earlier face the darkness of the morning for another hour. As I make this argument for the third time, I sometimes feel that we are doing battle with the forces of darkness—I am looking directly across the Chamber at the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood). Some Members will imagine that I am participating in this debate merely to indulge in what is claimed to be the perennial Scottish ritual of opposing any changes to the clocks, but that is not true.
A similar idea was defeated in this House in 1970—this may help the hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr Gale) —when the then Member for the Western Isles, the late Donald Stewart, started his Commons speaking career by opposing this very argument 40 years and a day ago, on 2 December 1970, when I was a mere babe in arms of five months. I was reminded of it by one of the Doorkeepers, Mr Robin Fell from the Serjeant at Arms office. He was working in the Commons at the time, and such is his impressive institutional memory that he remembered the debate. Donald Stewart said:
“Public opinion polls would indicate that there is a case for abolishing British Standard Time.”
He went on to say:
“Central European Time is really what we are discussing. It has little relevance to England and none at all to Scotland. It is pleasant to know that several hon. Members from English constituencies, some of them in the south, have indicated to me that they intend to vote for the abolition of British Standard Time.”—[Official Report, 2 December 1970; Vol. 807, c. 1346.]
Mr MacNeil
The trial period is the dangerous part. A trial period of three years is quite a large percentage of somebody’s life. I would be happier if something could be done about the EU directive. Rather than plunge people in Scotland into misery, we could turn the other way, look south-east towards Belgium—towards Brussels and the EU—and move forward with greater security, but instead we will be shoehorned into this by interests in the south of England aligning with interests in the EU and plunging Scotland into darkness.
Mr Ellwood
The hon. Gentleman says that he is representing his seat and Scotland by claiming that we are going to plunge them into misery. How does he square that with the three recent polls in Scotland in which people said they favoured this move, and with the fact that the farmers, who were the big opponents of this change, have now decided to embrace it because in many cases they have moved into the world of tourism?
Mr MacNeil
I draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to an Ipsos MORI poll on changing the clocks, which showed that 19% of people in Scotland were in favour and 28% of people in London were in favour. The average throughout the UK was 25%, so the polling evidence is not as conclusive as he suggests.
Mr Ellwood
Let us just focus on that debate for a moment. Reginald Maudling did make those comments, but he also read out some statistics that showed that the number of deaths and injuries decreased during the period of the trial. What actually happened, as has been confirmed by colleagues who are now in another place, is that the farming industry—that powerful lobby—pressurised many Conservative MPs by saying, “If you want those precious poster sites in our fields for the general election, you must vote against this.” That is one of the reasons why many chose to follow their heart rather than their head and said, “ We should oppose this motion.” The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point, which is why we are calling for more information. We are encouraging the Government to examine the matter more closely, leading up to a trial.
Mr MacNeil
I am intrigued by that last contribution. Has the hon. Gentleman uncovered corruption in the Conservative party 40 years ago?
Mr Ellwood
I think I will gloss over that and move straight on to some of the other areas that have been mentioned.
The roads issue is important. There were 1,120 fewer deaths and injuries during that trial period. That is an important piece of evidence. I say to the hon. Gentleman that it is also important to Scotland, because there is a 27% higher risk of an accident in Scotland; more people walk than use cars and so on, so there is a greater likelihood of people being in danger, particularly children. As I said in an intervention, the Cambridge study said that had the experiment continued, more than 3,500 people who died during that period would be alive today.