Climate Change Bill [HL]

The noble Baroness, Lady Billingham, has made a very serious point and this may be the first amendment in this whole process that the Government are wonted to accept because it is very straightforward. In the Second World War, when energy was absolutely critical, we introduced daylight saving. We did that because it was necessary and it worked. At the end of the Second World War, for reasons I am not aware of, it was discontinued. That seemed a pity. There have been various attempts, however, to reintroduce daylight saving ever since and so far they have failed. In December I asked the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, a supplementary oral question about the introduction of daylight saving as an energy measure and in his response he said he tended to agree with this proposal and that he thought it was a good idea. Here is an opportunity for him to move forward and agree something straightaway by accepting the amendment. It would be the first amendment in the whole of these five days which the Government had been prepared to accept forthwith. I hope, therefore, that this will work now and that we can move ahead. The noble Baroness, Lady Billingham, has made it extremely clear that there are plenty of precedents for how you can establish this in a separate measure. It would be a simple measure, it would achieve the objectives of the Bill and it would counteract all the technical things about emissions which have been discussed. I hope that the Government will agree.