Daylight Saving Bill

I am not going to give way. I want to make some progress, and then I shall take some interventions. Of course, much of the reason for the vote against the change was that the residents did not wish to be in a different time zone from the rest of the United Kingdom, but it has to be said that farmers in Jersey were among the most vociferous opponents of a move to central European time. Let us consider the detailed arguments that have been put forward today, starting with the arguments on energy saving and climate change. Apart from the general attractiveness of lighter evenings, one of the most persuasive arguments in favour of moving the clocks forward is to save energy. One reason why I came into politics was to push forward the green agenda, and like most people I think that any change that might contribute to saving energy and reducing our carbon output needs to be considered carefully. I have looked particularly closely at the evidence on that issue, because it is not totally one-sided. The report for the 10:10 Lighter Later campaign quoted studies by Cambridge university that suggested that darker evenings produce a 2.2% increase in demand for electricity in the late afternoon and early evening, which requires the use of the most expensive supply source provided by inefficient power stations that have to be brought on line to cope with the demand. The studies also suggested that a reduction in CO2 emissions of 1.2 million tonnes could be achieved during the six winter months, which is the equivalent of removing 20,000 cars from our roads over the same period. However, a recent response from the Department of Energy and Climate Change to the Energy and Climate Change Committee pointed out that energy saving benefits are far from clear-cut. It concluded that although we might expect overall energy use to be reduced by extending British summer time, the effects are likely to be small. The most significant effect would be the switch of lighting demand from the evening to the morning. Although, on the one hand, the working day would be more aligned with natural daylight, leading to a reduction in demand, there are other factors, not least that households may be more likely to turn lights on when it is dark than off when it is light. Energy use might therefore increase due to people leaving lights on after switching them on because of the darker mornings. Although evening peak electricity may flatten or reduce, evening peaks between Britain and France may become more aligned, which would have implications for prices and security of supply in situations of low generation capacity margin. Finally on this issue, a study in 1990 by Paul Littlefair, the project leader for the Building Research Establishment's programme of daylight research, concluded that the introduction of single/double summer time would lead to extra lighting energy costs, probably to the tune of £10 million a year. We should remember that Portugal ended its experiment with central European time because the small energy savings could not justify the inconvenience that the change created. In this area, as in others, the evidence is not clear-cut. However, the importance of the climate change agenda means that even relatively small savings are worth while. As I am a firm believer in that agenda, I believe that we should consider this matter seriously. I shall turn to the arguments regarding business and trade. One of the major arguments for the 1960s experiment of moving to British standard time was that it would be far easier to do business with our European neighbours, which would have positive impacts on our economy and prosperity. The European Union remains our largest trading partner, but since 1970 the world has changed and is now almost unrecognisable. We now have a Union of 27 member states over three time zones, whereas previously the UK was trying to join a common market of six countries all in the same time zone. At that time, the population and the Government were interested in tapping into the prosperity that access to that market could bring.