09:34 Rebecca Harris (Conservative)

I support the Bill. In the early days, organisations such as ROSPA did much to support measures on safety grounds, but does the hon. Lady agree that, with the challenge of climate change and the importance of reducing our carbon emissions, it is more important than ever that the bizarre practices that apply to private Members’ business on Fridays do not prevent the Bill from getting a full and proper hearing and reaching the statute book?

I thank the hon. Lady for that helpful intervention. I agree. The arguments in favour of the measure now are more salient than they ever have been. I will go on to outline some of those issues, including the climate change impact that she is concerned about.

[Source]

22:18 Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)

I want to refer predominantly to the energy savings. The Energy and Climate Change Committee, of which I am a member, conducted a mini inquiry into the matter in October. As the hon. Lady said, the energy saving factors today represent the big difference from the arguments of the 1960s and ’70s. Back then, energy security was not the big issue it is today. We had plentiful supplies of indigenous coal, and then we moved on to the benefits of North sea gas, so we did not think of energy security in the same way as we do today. Obviously, our minds have been changed by environmental and climate change issues as well. That is the big difference.

It was important that the Select Committee considered the benefits of energy savings. The positive nature of the evidence given by the academics from the university of Cambridge study and from a representative of the National Grid was stark. I stress that the mini inquiry considered electricity demand alone. Perhaps we should also have looked at the gas benefits. We might get the opportunity to do that in the future. As the hon. Lady said, the first thing people do in October when the clocks go back, is adjust their thermostats and the timings on their gas boilers, so that gas is used much earlier in the evening. That has an impact. Were we to quantify gas consumption as we can electricity, the environmental, climate change and CO 2 emission benefits from the reduction of CO 2 would be very obvious. We must take that forward. As the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) said, that would help with fuel poverty. I think that it is estimated that £200 million could be saved in electricity bills alone, and adding gas to that would make a massive difference to vulnerable people in this country. There are massive benefits to be had there.

[Source]

10:54 Caroline Nokes (Conservative)

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) on introducing the Bill. She may have drawn accusations that she is a barbecue-obsessed southerner but, considering today’s temperature, that seems irrelevant. I thank the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) for his comments about the work of the Energy and Climate Change Committee, which has recently considered the issue. I am impressed to see a significant proportion of the members of the Environmental Audit Committee, on which I sit, present. It too appreciates the potential benefits of the measure.

[Source]

10:57 Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that something significant has changed since 1968, which is that we face catastrophic climate change and an energy crisis? This measure has the potential to take the equivalent of 172,000 cars off the roads. Does he not think that that alone merits at least a trial?

[Source]

11:55 Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)

First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) on proposing the Bill and refusing to be discouraged by the failure of previous attempts in the House to introduce daylight saving time. I am extremely glad that she has proposed the Bill, because the urgency of the problems of climate change and fuel poverty means that the arguments for bringing the nation’s clocks into closer alignment with the hours of daylight are stronger than ever. Moving our clocks forward by an extra hour throughout the year would bring a range of benefits, as we have heard, but I would like to draw particular attention, again, to the substantial reductions in energy consumption and carbon emissions that would result from the simple and effective measures in the Bill.

[Source]