One Nation, One Time: Why the Daylight Savings Bill must not pass
Nik Darlington 2.55pm
British Summer Time began yesterday for another year. If a Conservative MP and her supporters get their way, its days might be numbered.
Rebecca Harris’ Daylight Savings Bill passed its second reading on 3rd December. A bill committee is being assembled to deliver a report before a possible third reading.
The bill would require the Government to run a cost-benefit analysis of moving the clocks forward by one hour for all or part of the year. If this exercise were to report that a clock change would benefit the UK, the Government should carry out a trial.
At the time, Ed Davey, a junior minister at the Department for Business, opposing the bill on behalf of the Government:
“There are concerns about the longer, darker winter mornings that would result: much is said about impacts in northern parts of the UK, but a change would mean delaying dawn in mid-winter even in London until after 9 o’ clock.
One thing we remain convinced about, which must lead us to oppose the Bill, is that we cannot make this change unless we have consensus throughout the United Kingdom. That has recently been made clear by the Prime Minister on more than one occasion.
We must acknowledge that the change would have widely differing impacts on day-to-day life in different parts of the UK. They would be particularly acute in Scotland and Northern Ireland.”
Nevertheless, it has been reported that the Government is considering the clock change proposed by the Bill as part of its tourism strategy. When the Department for Culture, Media and Sport published its tourism policy document earlier this month, it contained nothing of the sort. However, the earlier suspicions suggest that the surprising strength of public opinion in favour changing the clocks is having some impact on Ministers.
During the debate in December, MPs made many compelling points in favour and against. Each argument seemed to cancel out another. No wonder we have not been able to solve this dilemma for decades.
But nothing can counterbalance the detrimental effect on Scotland and other northerly regions. This is my greatest concern.
Angus MacNeil (SNP, Na h-Eileanan an Iar) pointed out in December that “more electricity would be used on darker mornings” in Scotland. Dr Eilidh Whiteford (SNP, Banff & Buchan) said farmers are “less opposed to the measure than they were forty years ago [because] they now have heating and lighting in their steadings [which] rather undermines the carbon saving argument.” Two Liberals, Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) and Alan Reid (Argyll & Bute) also spoke against the Bill.
The SNP can be prone to nonsensical shortbread hyperbole but Angus MacNeil went on to make a very sound point about the state of the Union:
“The progress of this bill is literally a wake-up call to the prospect of dark mornings for everyone north of Manchester, and has been pushed through by MPs from the south with no regard to the impact these changes would have on the quality of life for people in the north. This change would be acutely felt in Scotland, raising real safety and quality of life concerns, and this is now a real test for the Tory government and its claims of a respect agenda for Scotland.”
Were the measure to pass, I fear it would provide Alex Salmond with an excuse to declare unilateral horological independence from the rest of the United Kingdom. Some argue that other countries cope just fine with multiple time zones, yet they tend to be vast areas such as Russia or the United States. It would be inappropriate for a small archipelago such as this. It runs the risk of alienating Scotland and making life difficult for communities that straddle the border.
In 2004, the votes of Scottish MPs imposed top-up tuition fees on English graduates, when a majority of English MPs voted against. People, quite rightly, were a bit cross about this. Similarly, changing the clocks might sound a good wheeze to MPs in the south of England who voted for the Bill in December, such as Andrew Tyrie (C, Chichester), Simon Hughes (LD, Bermondsey & Old Southwark), Karen Buck (Lab, Westminster North), and Caroline Lucas (Green, Brighton Pavilion). Their northern, Scottish and Northern Irish colleagues have very real concerns.
We have tried this experiment before and this is the eighth occasion since the 1970s that someone has tried to revive it. I sat writing in my conservatory yesterday evening, still bathed in warm sunlight, so I understand the attractiveness of staying lighter later. There are good arguments about road safety and carbon emissions. However, if this attempt succeeds, I worry about the constitutional implications and the possibility that Scotland could go its separate way. It would be another step down the road to breaking up the United Kingdom.
The Government might be beginning to think of a change as an expedient, headline-grabbing progressive measure. It is not; it is a constitutional risk. Westminster must govern for the entire nation, not sections of it.
