Daylight Saving Bill

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil), and I will address some of the points that he made later. The principal argument for considering changing the clocks is simple: it is about how we can best align our lives to maximise the benefits of daylight. The idea is not new, of course, but the circumstances in which we are debating the matter are new. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) on selecting this subject for her private Member's Bill and on outlining how the pace of change in our modern busy world makes things different from when the subject was last considered. The second key point is that there is new evidence to support the clock change. Thirdly, the public are more educated in their views than ever before, and that is the case across the country, from Bournemouth all the way up to the constituency that the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken represents. That is reflected in the diverse range of constituencies represented by the Members who are attending this debate. The hon. Gentleman said there are an awful lot of voices against this move in Scotland. I am sorry his hon. Friends were not able to find the time to join him and present themselves and their arguments today. I first came across this issue when I was shadow Tourism Minister. I looked at it without prejudice or passion, and it became clear that it is very important for the tourism industry—I say that just as the hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster) departs. The Tourism Alliance has done a lot of work on this. However, I stepped away from the specific issue of tourism and thought about how it might benefit or damage the whole of the country. It is clear that there would be huge benefits in many corners of our lives. I studied the change's potential impacts on British society as a whole and why the last experiment was unsuccessful. It is clear that Britain is in a different place today. Our lifestyles, technologies, industries and priorities have fundamentally changed since the last experiment. Most people rise after sunrise and stay awake long after sunset, wasting one of the few things in life that are free: daylight. Essentially, this subject is about how we align our lives with the movement of the sun across the heavens.