By Glen Owen
Last updated at 2:30 AM on 5th December 2010
A plot to move our clocks forward by an hour – to so-called ‘Berlin Time’ – looks doomed to failure after a campaign by The Mail on Sunday highlighted the potential nightmare it could create.
Speaking during an impassioned Commons debate last week, Consumer Affairs Minister Ed Davey demolished the arguments of reformers who want us to join residents of the German capital in living an hour ahead of GMT in winter and two hours ahead in summer.
And he warned they were unlikely to win ministerial backing in their campaign.
Just say nein: How the Mail on Sunday has fought to stop the campaign
Mr Davey cited research by this newspaper which found that experimenting with the change on the Continent had led to a rise in stress levels, mental illness, pollution and road accidents, but had failed to produce the expected energy savings.
Homing in on Portugal, which attempted the change in the Nineties, Mr Davey said it had ‘reverted to GMT because its population decided that the gains of lighter evenings were not, in the end, offset by the pain of darker mornings’.
The Lib Dem Minister was speaking on Friday during the second reading of a Private Member’s Bill brought by Tory MP Rebecca Harris, who argued that lighter afternoons would make the roads safer, reduce crime and boost business.
The Bill passed its first Commons hurdle by 92 to ten – but Mr Davey signalled that it did not have the support of the Coalition.
‘In Portugal, the light summer evenings had a disturbing effect on children’s sleeping habits,’ said Mr Davey.
‘Pollution from road traffic increased. Perhaps more importantly, the energy savings arguments were relatively weak. The intended savings in household electricity consumption were disappointingly low.
‘And there was a rise in road traffic claims, rather than the reverse.'
Against change: Consumer Affairs Minister Ed Davey MP
Mr Davey said the difficulties the reform would bring for northern parts of the UK – in the winter it would be dark until 10am, leading to a hazardous school run for children and hours of blackness for farmers – made the Coalition’s support unlikely.
‘A responsible Government must take careful account of the disadvantages that that would bring to certain communities,’ he said.
‘As things stand, despite some of the arguments we have heard today, it remains clear that there are a number of significant issues in respect of such a change for Scotland and Northern Ireland.’
Therefore, he said, the Government could not support the Bill – although as it was ‘an important issue’, it intended to ‘consider the question further’.
Earlier in the debate Ms Harris had attempted to rebrand the proposed reform as ‘Churchill time’, citing the wartime leader’s decision to move the clocks forward an hour to save fuel and allow safer journeys during the blackouts.
‘Daylight saving has been championed by people all over the country and across the political spectrum,’ she said.
‘The issue is not about Berlin or getting rid of tradition. It is entirely about what is right for the residents of these islands and nothing else.’
Tory Jacob Rees-Mogg, one of the ten MPs to vote against the measure, said sardonically: ‘Simply, there is not enough daylight in the winter, and there is remarkably little that Government – or even a sovereign Parliament – can do about it.’
Scottish MPs, whose constituents would be plunged into winter morning darkness by the measure, led the calls against the Bill.
Mission: Tory Rebecca Harris
Malcolm Bruce, the Lib Dem MP for Gordon, asked Ms Harris whether she was ‘really convinced that the people of London will be happy when they realise that in mid-winter they will enjoy sunrise 18 minutes later than Aberdeen currently enjoys in mid-winter?’
And the SNP’s Eilidh Whiteford pointed out that during a trial of the proposed change in the Sixties, road fatalities in the north of Scotland increased.
‘That happened despite the fact that during the same period speed limits, drink-driving legislation and seatbelts were introduced,’ she said.
‘Early mornings are a hazardous time to be on the roads.’
Tory MP Angie Bray, who represents Ealing Central and Acton in London, cited a bizarre autobiographical justification for lighter afternoons.
‘I went to a Scottish university, St Andrews, and one of my flatmates never saw any daylight,’ she said.
‘He used to go to bed in the early hours of the morning and rise at about 2.30 or 3 o’clock in the afternoon.
‘By the time he had scrubbed his teeth and stepped outside, it was pitch dark again.
‘A little light might have done him some good – he never looked a very healthy colour.’
Former Labour Culture Minister Ben Bradshaw also spoke in favour of the measure, claiming that ‘no other piece of legislation has the potential to spread so much happiness across the UK’.
The Bill, which calls on Ministers to conduct a full analysis of the likely benefits of moving in line with Central European Time and then carry out a three-year trial if appropriate, now goes to its detailed committee stage.
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