Devolution (Time) Bill [HL]

Just watch them. Last night was not a great night for either of us, but that is by the bye. We should get rid of all these petty things. In a perfect world, time zones should logically be divided into 24 segments, like a chocolate orange, so that lines are drawn. But the Channel Islands, for example, are to the west of France but an hour behind it. We are clearly not looking at it in terms of pure time, with the earth moving round the sun; we are dealing with it politically. As I understand it, the date line, which is in the Pacific and already has a funny jiggle in it, is being reconsidered. We should be looking at time zones not only longitudinally but also latitudinally. The idea that they are all the same is simply not true. It causes infuriation in Scotland that such decisions taken in England seem to be for the benefit of England and show complete disregard for what is happening in Scotland. As I recall, when this experiment was first introduced in the 1960s and early 1970s, it was felt that there were two very powerful arguments in favour: that farm workers would be working for two hours in the dark at the beginning of the day, and that children going to school would be killed. On the latter point, irrefutable evidence shows that more children are killed on the way back from school than are killed in the early morning when—although they might claim to be rather sleepy and dozy—peoples’ reactions are better. It is not as if people returning from work are drunk or anything like that; they are just tired and their reactions a bit slower. There is irrefutable evidence to that effect. The other argument deployed was farm workers. I cannot understand, particularly against the background and principles of localism, why we have not negotiated different hours for farm workers in Sussex or Shetland, for example, so that they do not have to work for two hours in the dark in Scotland.