Energy Saving (Daylight) Bill

All right. I will concede that I was possibly being a little mischievous. I shall be brief because I do not want to contribute to talking the measure out, because it is well worth pursuing. I hope that the Minister and the Government can be persuaded at least to allow the Bill to complete its Second Reading successfully so that the problems that have been aired can be examined in Committee. The evidence from the previous experiment on which the Bill is predicated is clear and sound. As has been stated, the measure is backed by a number of authorities. It seems to border on the immoral to pass up the opportunity of saving more than 100 lives a year—not just any lives but, predominantly, the lives of children—and, given our emphasis on climate change, to pass up the opportunity of saving, at a conservative estimate, at least 170,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. How can we deny that possibility? We should remember that the measure would still be an experiment. The Portuguese experience has been cited as an example. I suggest that it is not relevant to our circumstances for several reasons. The principal reason is that the latitude of Portugal is far south of ours. Portugal never gets the short day length that we get in the British isles. It is that short day length in the winter that makes the Bill so relevant. The amount of light is precious. The Bill does nothing to increase that amount of light; it merely suggests how we should use it to the best advantage. As for the debate that has been raging about Scotland, devolution and the possibility of different time zones, there is a danger that we have been hearing something of a false argument. The Bill has been argued against because Scotland might choose to keep a different time zone. It has been argued that we should not be allowed to change our time zone because it would be different from that of Scotland, meaning that a train could arrive at Berwick before it had left Edinburgh. That is a nonsensical and dishonest argument. It is like arguing that because Scotland does not want to save lives, we should not be able to.