Daylight Saving Bill

I commend the hon. Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) for bringing the Bill before us. I hope she is enjoying today's experience a little more than the Postal Services Bill Committee, on which we both sit. I suspect she might have become sick of the sound of my voice over the past few weeks, but if she will tolerate me a little longer I might have something interesting to say to her. The Bill certainly has a strong campaign behind it. The hon. Lady and those at Lighter Later deserve credit for so forcefully making their argument. Perhaps there is a less vocal and less organised argument against these proposals but, as we know, it is not always those who shout loudest who win the argument. The Opposition do not disagree with the aims of the Bill in principle, but we are concerned about how it will work in practice. I will come on to some of those concerns in a moment or two. The basic goal of the Bill, as I understand it, is to examine the possibility of changing our daylight structure to ensure that we make the best use of the available daylight. Members on both sides of the House have contributed to a very lively and interesting debate, and not just today. As much as we would like to, we can never increase the number of daylight hours in each day. That is the will of a higher power, if Members believe in such a thing; if they do not, it simply has to do with how the earth spins on its axis. Either way, we have no control over it. The Bill sets out provisions for a three-year trial of the new daylight regime. However, that trial can begin only after completion of a cross-departmental review by Government and the establishment of a commission to determine whether the change will benefit all parts of the United Kingdom. Even after that, the Secretary of State would have to lay an order before Parliament. It is therefore clear that any change to our time structure would have to clear a considerable number of obstacles—or perhaps I should say ““checks and balances””—after Second Reading before anything came to fruition. I commend the hon. Lady for being so conciliatory in the wording of her Bill, but I remain to be totally persuaded that the wider public are as convinced as has been suggested today. If the Bill were passed today, a trial period should be instituted before the implementation of any wholesale change.