LONDON LETTER:A campaign to move the clocks forward throughout the year is reigniting old passions and reopening old wounds, writes MARK HENNESSY
FOR YEARS, an argument has raged in the United Kingdom about whether time-keeping rules should change to make the best use of available winter daylight during the evenings: it would boost trade, encourage tourism, bring it into line with EU trading partners . . . the list of alleged benefits has been endless.
The debate has always been especially acute in Scotland, partly because its northern parts would remain in darkness until 10am but also because it has resented possible London diktats on the issue; but it strikes a chord in southern climes too, as was shown by a particularly well-attended late-night debate in the House of Commons on Tuesday.
The UK last played around with time between 1968 and 1971 when it remained on Greenwich Mean Time +1 throughout the year. Road traffic deaths and injuries rose in the morning, but they fell in the evenings by a much larger amount, with 2,700 fewer killed and seriously injured during the two winters of the trial. The only place where the total losses did not fall – indeed, they rose slightly – was in Scotland’s far north.
However, the temporary change never became permanent, disappearing quietly in 1971. Few could agree on its benefits. A White Paper published in 1970 said it was impossible to quantify the advantages and disadvantages of British Standard Time, while academics later argued that the claims for road deaths and accidents were questionable because drink-driving restrictions had come into force also in 1967, so other factors were at work.
A permanent change has long been sought by the Lighter Later campaign, which argues: “The idea is simple: we shift the clocks forward by one hour throughout the entire year.
“We would still put the clocks forward in spring and back in autumn, but we would have moved an hour of daylight from the morning to the evening, when more of us are awake to enjoy it,” says the campaign.
The issue ignites old passions. In Scotland’s Holyrood parliament last week, Scottish Conservative MSP John Scott demanded to know from a Scottish National Party (SNP) minister if she agreed “that Scottish children walking to school in darkness is not an acceptable price to pay for an extra hour of sunlight in Sussex”.
One who has long favoured the change, Labour House of Commons Glasgow MP Tom Harris, the instigator of Tuesday night’s debate, was scathing about Scott’s comment, saying: “There are times when I feel like holding my head in my hands and weeping for my nation, when such nonsense passes for intelligent discourse.
“First of all, there is the small point that it is not possible to create, reduce or ration the amount of daylight available to any part of our globe. That is a matter for God Almighty and the immutable laws of the physical universe,” said Harris, as he accused the Conservative of “summoning forth the bogeyman of the Auld Enemy”.
For years, Scotland was dead against the time change. Indeed, the Scotland Office in London insists that it is still opposed, but three public opinion polls in recent times have suggested that the popular mood has changed, or, at the very least, is prepared to give the concept a fair hearing.
A study that looked in detail at the impact of such a change on Scotland recently published by Dr Mayer Hillman of the University of Westminster argued that moving clocks forward by an hour would mean that adults working nine-to-five days would enjoy 300 extra hours of sunshine each year, with schoolchildren experiencing 200 hours more.
Though most of Scotland’s politicians are against, its farmers are, curiously, more open to considering change. National Farmers’ Union Scotland said “sufficient justification” had not yet been put forward for a change, but it said it supported a detailed analysis since the evidence from the 1968-71 experiment is so old as to be of no value.
A Private Members’ Bill promoted by Conservative Essex MP Rebecca Harris is to come before the Commons in early December, supported by the Lighter Later campaign, which has argued that the change could on its own reduce the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions by 100 million tonnes more cheaply than any other single action.
Gordon Brown, shortly before he left No 10 Downing Street earlier this year, told tourism industry leaders that he favoured a new three-year trial, believing that a permanent change could benefit tourism by £3.5 billion (€4.1 billion) annually, though even the “pro” camp worries the casual throwing out of such numbers harms, rather than helps, their cause.
“I must say that it is one of those claims that the public will have some difficulty accepting,” said Tom Harris. “Politicians throw such figures about all the time – £3.5 billion here, £10 billion there – but they do not have a great deal of meaning. Until we have a proper, scientific analysis of all the evidence, it will be quite fair for people to remain sceptical.”
And there are other ideas besides a move to single/double summertime. SNP MP Angus Brendan MacNeil, who represents Scottish islands off the west coast, said those who favour a permanent one-hour change should equally realise that the “benefits would be magnified if we put the clocks forward two hours, three hours, four hours, five hours or whatever”.
“Rather than changing the clocks seven weeks before midwinter and 14 weeks afterwards, as we do at the moment, why do we not have a five or six-week period either side of midwinter? We would then shorten wintertime by half and probably reach a consensus welcomed throughout the UK,” he said.