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Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Bournemouth?
Mr. Welsh: Indeed. In Bournemouth, there is a gain of 48 longer evenings compared with a loss of 38 darker mornings. It is obvious in whose narrow interests the Bill was framed. Although there are marginal benefits in some regions, for most of us the proposal will have definite disadvantages, especially the further north and west we reside.
The Bill will create the largest time zone in the world, double the width of zones elsewhere. The present time zone of the UK and Ireland is based on GMT, which has a mean solar time near London. Hence, Edinburgh is only 14 minutes and Stornoway 30 minutes behind, but the Bill would create a time zone based on Prague, leaving London 60 minutes behind, Edinburgh 74 minutes behind and Stornoway a massive one and a half hours behind. Northern Ireland, Cornwall and Carlisle would all be similarly disadvantaged.
The effect of those changes would be to extend the hours of morning darkness over longer periods of winter and that would not be compensated for by longer hours in the late afternoon. Those early hours of extended darkness are, by definition, colder, with hazards for construction industry, postal, agricultural and other workers. The failed experiment of the late 1960s gives us fair warning about what the Bill's effects would be if the House were misguided enough to pass it. Portugal is now seeking to return to GMT after having tried out the proposal in the Bill and found, as we have, the enormous and unacceptable price to be paid.
The proponents of CET have argued that there would be a reduction in road accidents, that vulnerable people in society would feel safer and that the proposal would improve the quality of life in terms of outdoor pursuits, tourism and leisure. In particular--again, we have heard it this morning--there has been considerable emotional propaganda about children being involved in accidents.
Some very emotive statistics about road accidents have been given to support the change proposed by the Bill. Extravagant claims such as
There is a clear contradiction in the extra daylight road safety claims based on the 1960s figures. The daylight extra claim is that there was a
However, I bring to the attention of the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West the more up-to-date Strathclyde regional council roads department report which points to
The report also states:
We are being told that fewer accidents and more fatalities and casualties occurred during the experimental years.
It is clear that light is only one factor in explaining road accidents. For example, in Strathclyde in 1986, 62 per cent. of accidents happened on dark and wet roads compared with 40 per cent. in daylight. Were the dark and wet conditions the determining factors, or was it purely the daylight? The influence of daylight on road accidents is uncertain and small compared with that of other major factors. Major and fatal accidents have generally been falling since that experiment.
The accident statistics that have been quoted do not prove the case for CET. The figures used by the Department of Transport do not take into account other factors such as wet roads, safety improvements such as compulsory seat belts, breathalyser tests and improvements in car, road and street designs since the experiment. The Strathclyde region report shows that the combination of dark mornings and light evenings produces greater road casualties among children. That is exactly the combination proposed in the Bill, and it poses great safety hazards for children. I recommend that report to the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West.
Mr. Butterfill:
Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that the analysis by the Transport Research Laboratory was based not just on the experimental period but on current information about what was happening? Is he not aware that it specifically used as one of its research areas central and southern Scotland? Does he suggest that Strathclyde council, however eminent it may be, has more experienced officials than the Transport Research Laboratory?
Mr. Welsh:
Yes. It runs half of Scotland and deals daily with the practical effect of road accidents. Unfortunately, time does not allow me to give the hon. Gentleman the details of the research, but I encourage him to find them. The research proves that darker mornings combined with lighter evenings cause more accidents among children. That is an argument against the Bill.
It is claimed that an extra hour of daylight in the afternoon or evening would benefit elderly men and women who, because of crime and violence, are driven back into their houses and are too frightened to go out in the dark. The time when pensioners would benefit most from an extra hour of evening daylight is in the winter, and that is the time of year when weather conditions are most likely to keep them in their homes. Many hon. Members from outside Scotland fail to realise how dreich a Scottish afternoon can be when they talk about measures affecting sunlight. An extra hour of daylight in the evening would not remove the fear of the elderly.
I shall deal now with quality of life and tourism. Sunset would occur before the end of the working day for most of the winter. The cold would be a greater disincentive than darkness for later activity. Only half of the top 10 sports are daylight-dependent. The hon. Member for Bournemouth, West presented an image of thousands of tourists pouring northwards to enjoy the Edinburgh tattoo in broad daylight--when it cannot be seen! The experiment was tried in the late 1960s and it failed. That is why Parliament rejected it by a massive majority.
In 1992, Portugal was persuaded by the same arguments used in promoting the Bill. It changed from GMT and it found that exactly the same thing happened there as happened to us--not in theory, but in practice. Portugal had to leave its clock alone when all the other western European countries moved ahead by one hour, and it accompanied them when they switched back in September. Ever since the Government decided that Portugal would have the same time as its neighbours on the continent--for economic gain, as it was claimed-- there have been more critics than supporters of the measure.
The Portuguese Government have asked for an investigation into the effects. Some early replies conclude that working people suffer from the unnatural clock time in January and December. Health research has found that people showed greater need for sleeping pills because their normal rhythms had been disrupted--a sort of minor but continued jet lag. We say "No thanks" to that in Scotland. Children were said to have greater difficulty in concentrating at school because they tended to go to sleep later when daylight continued well into the evening. There were economic and environmental costs--for example, increased electricity consumption.
A Portuguese newspaper--I shall give the House the English translation--recently referred to
Sir George Gardiner (Reigate):
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Angus, East (Mr. Welsh) because I agreed with every word he had to say--and that is rare. The previous two speeches have made the points against the Bill with such vigour that I do not need to repeat them; therefore, this will be a brief speech.
Like many hon. Members, I think that there is a heavy air of deja vu hanging over the debate. As has been pointed out frequently today, we have been through this experiment in 1968-70, and we have heard all the arguments before. We have put them to the test and we have seen the public reaction, but here we go again. There cannot be many hon. Members who recall those debates in 1968 and 1970. I certainly have not been a Member of Parliament for that long, but I heard the debates. In those years, I was serving as a political correspondent for regional newspapers, and all my papers and all their readers were keenly interested in the experiment and how it worked out.
Like others, I have gone back to Hansard and reminded myself of the speech made by the late David Ennals, the then Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, when introducing the British Standard Time Bill [Lords]. He commended the Bill, although a free vote followed. In his speech, he mentioned the many benefits that would accrue to our commercial transactions with the continent. Not so much was made then of tourism, but we were told to expect greater convenience in travel. He told us, too, of the best expert assessment that the Bill would bring a reduction in road accidents.
When I re-read that speech, I realised what great gains we were promised in the quality of our lives and what joy it must have been to be alive on that glad evening when, rather lethargically and by a majority of 118, that Bill was passed. Most of the speeches made in that first debate were against it, but the Government and a majority of the House were prepared to listen to so-called expert outside organisations.
At the time of the debate on 2 December 1970, there was a different Home Secretary, Reggie Maudling, who kicked off the debate on whether the experiment to add a further hour of darkness in the morning should be made permanent. My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill) said this morning that he thought that that experimental period had perhaps been too short. The feeling at the time was that it had gone on for far too long, and the sooner it ended, the better.
The late Reginald Maudling, in introducing that debate, took a neutral stance. He said that the pros and cons of the arguments were still pretty balanced. As has been noted by other hon. Members, he certainly treated with great reserve the road casualty figures advanced at the start of the experimental period and offered again at the end. He also referred to a surprising and sad increase in the number of child casualties between 6 pm and 7 pm-- a subject that has been dealt with by previous speakers today.
The mood in the country had swung against the experiment.During the debate in December 1970, a Harris opinion poll from that morning was quoted showing that 57 per cent. of the population wished to return to the old system, 30 per cent. wished to stay with the experiment and 6 per cent. did not know. The matter was put to the vote: 81 voted in favour of making the experiment permanent, 366 voted against--a staggering majority of 285. The experiment was halted.
What was the result of halting the experiment? Was there a massive increase in road casualties? Certainly not. Was there any great diminution in business opportunities on the continent or anywhere else? No, there certainly was not. Did the tourist industry have to make cuts? No, it certainly did not--from those years it has gone on from strength to strength. Yet we are now hearing the same arguments repeated.
We hear from the Transport Research Laboratory its estimate that passing the Bill would save, I think, 110 deaths on the road and 450 serious injuries. I cannot understand how any responsible organisation can utter such precise forecasts; they must be guesstimates--it does not make sense. Do they take into account, as my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman) asked, the accidents that occur on footpaths in the hours of the morning and the evening? One might go on to ask whether they take account of those who suffer heart attacks on
arriving at work having coped with the dark and icy morning conditions. The best advice that we have received today from several contributors is that the road casualty argument is neutral and does not incline one way or the other.
We have also been told--again with great precision-- of the extra revenue that will come to the tourist industry. We were given precise figures earlier today, although I cannot remember them. I cannot understand the basis of such guesstimates. If we allow the Bill to become law, the travel agencies will be quids in. They will certainly benefit during the winter months, when many more of the populace will decide to take a winter holiday to get away from the terrible dark mornings that they have to endure.
We have been told yet again about the disadvantages to British industry and commerce of being in a different time zone, quite apart from the fact that obviously our business and commerce must deal with different time zones right across the world. According to the recent evidence of our export performance, that does not seem to have held our businesses back in the least. Australia and, in particular, the United States have been mentioned, where commerce and industry manage to operate effectively. The United States eastern seaboard works well with the western one despite the fact that three different time zones have to be crossed. That does not seem to have held American industry back. All experience gives the lie to the claim about the disadvantages suffered.
We are part of a global economy. To be honest, if business men cannot afford to get up a little earlier to make their telephone calls from home--they all have telephones at home, paid for by their companies--they do not deserve to be in business.
"20,000 deaths would have been prevented if CET had been introduced in 1971"
are based on flawed statistics. They are Department of Transport hypothetical estimates that have been extrapolated from marginal results in the 1967-71 period. When politicians start to use statistics, matters become hazy, and I am afraid that there have been examples of that in the debate.
"5 per cent. fall in Scottish accidents".
"a discernible increase in road fatalities".
"these years interrupted a general downward trend in road accident casualties".
"Portugal's likely return to GMT".
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