Central European Time

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. I was building up to a question for the Minister. Will he tell us whether a move to central European time would impact on the electricity cost savings to the UK, made possible by the Interconnector? If so, by how much? Will we need more or less generating capacity if we are on central European time? Fourthly, some of the costs of trade and travel might be saved by a change to central European time. The cost of British Airways planes staying overnight in continental airports is an example. As the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery, mentioned, there is also the possibility of a reduction in the cost of overnight stays for people who do business with mainland Europe if they are able to catch the early train or plane in time to make a meeting in Paris or Berlin that morning. However, to the extent that we would be making it easier to do business in France and Germany, while acknowledging that those countries may be economically more significant than Portugal and southern Ireland, it might have the opposite effect for people doing business with those countries. We ought to ask how businessmen cope with the time difference between Lisbon and Madrid, Stockholm and Helsinki, or Chicago and Detroit, to name but a few comparisons where there is a similar time difference. My point is to emphasise that a move to central European time should not be seen as a magical solution to all our problems. A move needs to be very carefully thought through to avoid creating unforeseen problems. Equally, I am not yet convinced by the argument that we currently have only four hours during each day when we can speak on the telephone to those on the Continent. A change to central European time would give us an increase of one hour, which by my calculations is 17 per cent, in the time available to talk to Europe, but would result in a 25 per cent reduction in the time available to talk to people even on the east coast of America. America remains—or it was in 2003, which is the latest year for which I have figures—the biggest single country in terms of share of UK exports, with £29 billion in goods and a considerable sum in services. In addition, north America accounted for more than £11 billion of investment into the UK for the year 2003–04, while the whole of the EU generated £2.5 billion less, or 23 per cent less, with a total of £8.5 billion. I am not saying that our minds should be closed on the matter, but it would be a disaster to put any of that, with the jobs and associated economic prosperity that comes with it, at risk without carefully considering the consequences. Fifthly, there has been a suggestion in earlier debates on this subject that farmers and others who work out of doors would benefit from a change. As a farmer’s son, I am confident that farmers, like all small businessmen, are flexible. They base their working day on when it is light, not on the more arbitrary clock. Do we suppose for one moment that farmers, even in Xinjiang province in western China, wait to milk their cows until the farmers in Manchuria, several thousand miles east, get up—even though they are forced, as my noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon mentioned, to adopt the same time zone? That would be in the middle of their period of daylight. Sixthly, as the noble Lords, Lord St John of Bletso and Lord Addington, suggested, there are the potential benefits, including to health, to people arising from more daylight after school and work to pursue sporting activities. The vastly increased proportion of people who nowadays find it convenient to exercise before they go to work should equally be borne in mind, however. Many people take their run then, because they find that it energises them for the day. If we moved to central European time, these people might suffer. Those who finish work at five or later would, in any event, hardly benefit at all, because it would still be dark for most of the winter. Seventhly, it has been argued that there are benefits to tourism and leisure activities arising from a change. I see the argument, but I am sceptical that one extra hour will make a huge difference to the sorts of leisure and tourism activities—perhaps setting aside the outdoor fitness activities I have just referred to—that people are able to undertake on winter afternoons. Eighthly in the order in which I have listed them—but by no means so low in order of importance—as the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, said, a conundrum is presented by Scotland in the context of a change to central European time. Time is not a devolved matter under the Scotland Act 1998. Perhaps, in retrospect, that was an oversight. On one hand, if Scotland were to join the rest of the United Kingdom in changing, it would mean that those at the western and northern extremes would spend a considerable part of the first half of each winter’s day in darkness; on the other hand, if Scotland were able to, and did, opt out, it would introduce between Scotland and England all the inconveniences the change had been intended to remove between England and the continental mainland. Assuming Northern Ireland followed England and Wales, it would have a similar problem in its dealings with southern Ireland. In conclusion, nothing that we mere mortals can do will give us more daylight. The question is only whether we should shift our clocks so that we have more of that limited resource in the morning or in the afternoon. Indeed, the proposition before us today is specifically whether we should consider trading in one hour of daylight in the morning for one in the evening. Before we rush into change, we could do worse than carefully examine, from all perspectives, why the Portuguese have changed to central European time and back again—much more recently than we did. According to the Financial Times, they changed to central European time in 1992 because it was considered essential for their participation in European monetary union. They changed back again in 1996 because, according to the Financial Times, public opinion had grown increasingly incensed over a move that many considered to have taken a toll on the country’s health, wealth and peace of mind. It was said to have been an economic mistake, although, admittedly, the reasons included that Portugal is further west than we are, and that Britain and America were more important to its economy than the rest of Europe. Those reasons are—with the exception of America—less relevant to us. Subject to the Minister’s answer to some of the questions raised today, it still sounds on balance that there might be case for considering a change to our timing system, if that consideration should be based on a thorough, wide and public consultation, the emphasis of which should be on safety, health and economics—the review suggested by the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein. Such a consultation should not be confined to whether we should simply move to central European time, but should consider other options, such as—as the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, suggested—simply adopting British summer time all year round, which would obviate the need to alter all our clocks twice a year. The noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, is to be congratulated on initiating this debate. The small number of participants is compensated for by the quality of the arguments on all sides. This will have been useful in giving the House an opportunity to air the issues in advance of the Second Reading of the Lighter Evenings (Experiment) Bill, introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Tanlaw, in November last year.