Daylight Saving Bill

Baroness Bray of Coln Excerpts

Friday 3rd December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman cited some times, but how long does that situation last in those places?

[Mr MacNeil]

The hon. Lady leads me nicely on to the next part of my speech. In this, I am not only a Scottish nationalist—I feel the mantle of English nationalism, too. I care for the good people of England and I care that for two months of the year, in the area north of Manchester, they would not see sunrise before 9 o’clock in the morning. Somebody has to speak up for the good people of England and I am happy to do that, come what may.

--- Later in debate ---

[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) on the Bill, which I am happy to support, and the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on her helpful remarks. I agree that the Bill is about scrutiny and debate as much as anything else, and I find it extraordinary that anybody would want to deny us the opportunity to have the issue sorted once and for all.

I have a long memory, and as colleagues have said we seem to go round and round on the issue. Every so often, it crops up again, we have a debate, it goes away because it is never properly decided on, and then it comes back again. I recall Sir John Butterfill in 1996 introducing just such a Bill.

[Mr MacNeil]

I should like to counter the hon. Lady. The issue has been decided on, but some malcontents return to the debate every so often. Perhaps that is one way of looking at it.

[Angie Bray]

The hon. Gentleman knows, however, that the problem with a private Member’s Bill is that it has to get over certain hurdles on a Friday, and that depends on how helpful people want to be. Such issues do not receive the proper scrutiny that they deserve unless we bring everybody’s concerns to the table and consider them in the round.

Sir John Butterfill, as Members said earlier, also attempted to introduce a private Member’s Bill back in 1996, and that is when I first became involved with the issue, working with him on his legislation. His measure was called “daylight extra”; the one before us is called “daylight saving”.

We have heard from the lighter evenings campaign, and Later Lighter—or rather, Lighter Later—has also commented.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

I think that the measure should be called “Churchill time”, as my hon. Friend so cleverly suggested today. She represents an urban constituency and I represent a rural constituency, and historically farmers have been against such a shift, but I have talked to the NFU, and it is at worst neutral on the issue, so does my hon. Friend agree that the world has changed significantly since it was last debated? Farming in Devizes has diversified; we have a huge tourism industry, and I have had nothing but very strong support for the measure, call it what we will.

[Angie Bray]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point. I was pleased to have a small role in suggesting the good title of “Churchill’s time”, which would be helpful to us patriots who get rather annoyed when people suggest that we are being pushed into this move by an EU directive or that we are going back to Berlin time.

[Mr MacNeil]

Perhaps rather than Churchill time, it should be Chamberlain time: appeasement is what is happening.

[Angie Bray]

It was Churchill who recognised that by going on to summer time, we would get more out of our factories and generally be more productive. That is why it was so useful during the war effort.

I introduced this matter as a member of the London assembly, because for Londoners, it is a no-brainer, although I appreciate that other regions have concerns and that not every region will think the same way. I was delighted to have full support from all parties on the London assembly. That was the one occasion when I found myself in complete agreement with the then Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone. It was a very happy, if unusual, occasion.

I was contacted before this debate by many of my constituents, urging me to speak in favour of the measure. We must remember that we are talking about a period of scrutiny and a trial, and are not prescribing what will come out at the end. This is an opportunity for everybody to put the facts on the table so that we can sort the matter out once and for all.

Even in the mid-1990s, when I was doing the legwork for Sir John Butterfill’s Bill, I was aware that some of the old Scottish objections had less resonance. We have moved even further beyond that now.

[Malcolm Bruce]

I, too, was very much involved in that Bill. I took part in “On the Record”, which had a live studio audience and a phone-in. At the beginning, the vote was two to one in favour of the idea, and at the end it was two to one against. Nearly all the representations against the idea came from the south and south-west of England, not from Scotland.

[Angie Bray]

General polling suggests that the public feel rather differently from that particularly small sample. At the time, Sir John Butterfill was ably supported by two Scottish Labour MPs, George Foulkes—now Lord Foulkes—and Brian Wilson, who made it clear that the measure would be good for a large part of Scotland. As we have heard today, the move can only be a good thing for the vast majority of the population in Scotland, as well as in England and Wales.

At the time, we were deluged by letters from Scottish farmers saying that the arguments were a bit patronising because they did have electricity in their barns. Some Scottish builders also wrote to us to say that they would prefer to drive to their job of work in the dark if they could have an extra hour of light towards the end of the day, because they would be able to do a longer day’s work.

[Dr Whiteford]

One reason why farmers in parts of Scotland are less opposed to the measure than they were 40 years ago is that they now have heating and lighting in their steadings. That rather undermines the carbon saving argument. The farmers to whom I have spoken are less than enthusiastic; at best they are neutral. Clearly, they are not diametrically opposed, as they once were, but that is because they are now able to heat and light the buildings that they use in the early morning.

[Angie Bray]

In a sense, that makes the point that we are moving forward. All those arguments can be put on the table when we have the scrutiny.

I went to a Scottish university, St Andrews, and one of my flatmates never saw any daylight. Admittedly, he chose his own hours, but he used to go to bed in the early hours of the morning and rise at about 2.30 or 3 o’clock in the afternoon. By the time he had scrubbed his teeth and stepped outside, it was pitch dark again. A little light might have done him some good—he never looked a very healthy colour.

The number of organisations that support the Bill speaks for itself: ROSPA, the police, sports bodies—including my local group, the Old Actonians, which contacted me—the hospitality industry, the tourist industry, the CBI, environmentalists and many more groups say that we should have a serious think about how we set our clocks.

Call me a bit lazy, but I have to admit that were I to be involved in the scrutiny, I would not plump for Churchill’s time exactly, because I think that would have been two hours forward in the summer. I am more of a compromise girl, and my view is that if we have a chance we should go on to permanent British summer time, not least because I get sick to death of changing my clocks twice a year. Having a settled time would be very handy, and it would be a compromise that would give us a bit of extra light in the afternoon when it would be used most effectively.

I am not sure that I want to move as far as keeping it light until midnight. When I was at St Andrews university it was light until about 11 o’clock at night at certain times, and that seemed a little bit too long for me. I am a British summer time girl and I am for sticking with it right through the year, but that is another argument that will be tested if we have scrutiny and a trial. That is the only way that we can move out of the revolving door of private Members’ Bills. Let us have proper scrutiny, so that the matter can be decided once and for all for the benefit of our constituents and the country as a whole.

[Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)]

First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) on securing the opportunity to debate this issue. Things such as environmental, social and economic benefits, fuel poverty and so on have been discussed in detail, but it is disappointing for me as a Member from Northern Ireland that so little thought has been given to the impact on that part of the country. We are not just further north but further west than the constituencies of almost anyone else participating in the debate, and that would have an impact if the changes were to take place.

The hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray) said that it was important to allow debate, and that that was the Bill’s purpose. I agree, which is why I will support the Bill, but I get slightly nervous when I hear the rather zealous opinions expressed against those of us who have concerns that we want considered. We are simply dismissed as though we were trying to hold back progress in some way.

[Angie Bray]

I would be very disappointed if the hon. Lady were to get the impression that I do not recognise the concerns. I think what I said was that all regions will have very different views, but that there will be an opportunity for those views to be put on the table and discussed and scrutinised properly. Of course all regions will have different views for different reasons, and I hope she accepts that I realise that.

[Naomi Long]

I do indeed, and the fervour that I referred to was not hers. However, some of the questions that have been raised have not been answered. For example, we must consider the coincidence of the last trial with the introduction of drink-driving regulations, speed limits and so on. That has not been effectively addressed by any of the proponents of the change.