Energy Saving (Daylight) Bill

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr. MacNeil), who has spoken about the forces of darkness. That is strange, because he is usually part of the forces of darkness. For once, we seem to be on the same side and fighting the forces of darkness. We usually differ, but we agree in this case. I have made many notes on the speeches in the debate. I wrote a note to myself that we were having an anti-Union debate. But the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) helped to relieve some of those fears when he agreed that he would be happy with the withdrawal of clauses 5, 6 and 7. Having said that, there were many other Members who did their best to try to send me down the road of making a speech on that subject. I will try to avoid that, although I will touch on it in a few places. Why are we having this debate? Business was mentioned earlier. We have 24-hour news coverage, permanent access to the internet, flexible working, flexible hours of working and working from home. It strikes me that changing time to suit businesses and how people work is spurious. We can cover every angle of 24 hours. People who are in employment know what their employment consists of, and when they take on a job it is explained to them what their hours of work will be. Under those circumstances, the question of whether Tokyo, London, Frankfurt or New York is up and running should not be part of our discussion. Opposition Members might feel differently, because business might be more important to them than it is to me. I share something with the hon. Member for—I will call it the Western Isles, because I am not very good with the Gaelic. His father and I were members of the same union. I would like to think that we probably shared the same politics, but perhaps not, because fathers and sons are very close with their politics—although in some cases, they are completely opposite. I happen to have the same politics as my father. Climate change was also mentioned. You will know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I am the chairman of the all-party group on nuclear energy and, as such, and given the Government’s energy review last year, I take a great interest in energy and its various aspects. As a group, we put in a submission that I am glad to say was similar to what the Government came back with. In looking at those matters, we had discussions about climate change and its effects. While I was a member of the Scottish Affairs Committee, we visited the United States. It was explained to me that summer is a peak time for energy usage these days, because more and more people have air conditioning, large fridges and various other bits and pieces on the go all the time. I was surprised by what I learned, particularly in an area such as Chicago, which has severe winters. I would have thought that the peak time for energy use in that area was the height of winter. But, no, the peak time now applies equally to summer and winter. In effect, energy consumption is practically a straight line for 365 days of the year in the United States. When we came back, we took evidence from various energy companies. I asked, ““What was—