Energy Saving (Daylight) Bill

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I shall say in response to that that I have allowed myself to be distracted. The hon. Member for South Suffolk raised a number of strong arguments in support of his Bill, and there is no doubt that the proposed measure is worthy of serious consideration. In fact, it is so worthy of consideration that we tend to examine the same, or a similar, proposition every few decades—and we are discussing it again today. If there was any disappointing aspect of his speech, it was his glossing over of the last substantial vote in the House on this issue in 1971. I have referred to that in a couple of interventions. There was a free vote and it resulted in a majority of 285 in favour of abandoning the experiment that had been taking place. There must have been some weight behind that decision if, after having lived through the experiment for three years, so many Members in all parts of the House were persuaded to say, ““We want to go away from it””—and Portugal did exactly the same after it experienced four years of such an experiment. If there had been strong support in the House today for the hon. Gentleman’s Bill, more Members would have supported his closure motion, which would have secured an opportunity to move the Bill into Committee for consideration. However, there are a number of points that I want to put on the record before we get to that point— It being half past Two o’clock, the debate stood adjourned. Debate to be resumed on Friday 2 February.