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Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 159 not moved.]
Clause 29 [Response to Committee's reports on progress]:
[Amendment No. 160 not moved.]
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Clause 30 [Duty to provide advice or other assistance on request]:
Baroness Billingham moved Amendment No. 161:
“( ) advise the authority on the potential for reducing the effects of climate change through the adoption of a daylight saving scheme.”The noble Baroness said: The debates and the development of the Bill have been absorbing. I was on the Joint Committee, along with many other Members who are here this evening. There has been a genuine dialogue and a good level of consensus on the Bill right from the outset, and I hope to follow that lead in moving the amendment.
The purpose of the amendment is absolutely clear, and I will restrict all my arguments to the potential of energy saving through daylight saving schemes. I do not need to remind noble Lords that the purpose of daylight saving is to adapt time so that the daylight hours can be used more efficiently, corresponding closely with waking hours. There are numerous models, but it is not my intention to describe them at length. It is enough to say that the expert Committee on Climate Change would be far better placed to select a model for the United Kingdom.
In previous debates we have suggested several additional duties to those laid out in the Bill for the climate change committee and I think that daylight saving could be another. All the scientific evidence suggests that reaching targets set out in the Bill will be a severe challenge. Those very targets may well become even more stringent as scientific evidence mounts as to the seriousness of climate change threat. In fact I would go as far as to say that the pressure is increasing daily, not only in emissions but also with a huge rise in energy prices. Daylight saving helps in both those areas.
According to evidence received from Dr Garnsey at Cambridge University, who bases her work on statistics from the National Grid, there would have been an electricity saving of 2.78 megawatts if winter clock time had been Greenwich mean time plus one in 2006—a significant saving. Emissions savings would have been 1.2 million tonnes of CO2. That is using the most modest daylight saving schemes. More extreme models would be even more effective. There is also the fact that daylight saving switches usage away from peak time, which is more costly, to cheaper times, so the consumer benefits both ways, not only in lower emissions but in lower electricity bills.
If proposals laid out in the Bill are to be translated into fact, measures to reduce climate change have got to be timed properly. The Stern report made no bones about it. The sooner we tackle climate change, it says, the cheaper and more effective it will be. So here is a start. We have role models all around the globe. The USA and Australia significantly have already adopted daylight saving schemes which have found favour with their citizens and at least another 70 countries have already instituted such schemes. There are more in the pipeline. I guarantee that all industrialised countries will look closely at more stringent schemes in the future.
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At virtually no cost, with proven success around the world, we could have our own daylight saving scheme in place in a very short time. We would have the guarantee of expert opinion from the climate change committee and we would see considerable energy savings for everyone in the UK.
To reject this proposal would be flying in the face of scientific evidence and the well-being of our citizens. I hope I have made the case as energy-efficiently as I am able. I look forward to contributions from all sides of the Committee and, of course, from the Minister. I beg to move.
Viscount Montgomery of Alamein: The noble Baroness, Lady Billingham, has made a very serious point and this may be the first amendment in this whole process that the Government are wonted to accept because it is very straightforward. In the Second World War, when energy was absolutely critical, we introduced daylight saving. We did that because it was necessary and it worked. At the end of the Second World War, for reasons I am not aware of, it was discontinued. That seemed a pity. There have been various attempts, however, to reintroduce daylight saving ever since and so far they have failed.
In December I asked the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, a supplementary oral question about the introduction of daylight saving as an energy measure and in his response he said he tended to agree with this proposal and that he thought it was a good idea. Here is an opportunity for him to move forward and agree something straightaway by accepting the amendment. It would be the first amendment in the whole of these five days which the Government had been prepared to accept forthwith. I hope, therefore, that this will work now and that we can move ahead. The noble Baroness, Lady Billingham, has made it extremely clear that there are plenty of precedents for how you can establish this in a separate measure. It would be a simple measure, it would achieve the objectives of the Bill and it would counteract all the technical things about emissions which have been discussed. I hope that the Government will agree.
9.15 pm
Baroness Greengross: I support the noble Baroness, Lady Billingham, on this important amendment. She and others in the past have quoted extremely convincing and comprehensive research which illustrates how much energy could be saved by giving us just one extra hour of daylight in the summer months.
Giving us that daylight would do a huge amount to reduce the effects of climate change while increasing the safety of some of the most vulnerable groups in our society, particularly the very young and very old. We know that we could also enhance the quality of their lives by doing this. It would make it safer for children to go out to play. We know that a lot of children in this country now suffer from a lack of vitamin D, which they get from sunlight, and an extra hour would make a great deal of difference to children’s health. We also know that many people are scared of going out at night, because alcohol-related and drug-related crime is much more likely to take place in the
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Lord Taylor of Holbeach: What is it about an issue like this that makes normally eminently sensible people lose all reason? I always thought that the purpose of growing old was to learn from one’s mistakes. Members of the Committee will remember that this has been tried before, in 1968, and the experiment was abandoned before it was concluded because it was so widely unpopular.
There are two ways of adjusting to the winter period. You have to decide whether you want to have dark mornings or light evenings and people have to adjust their working hours. Coming down to London nowadays, I am amazed at the lifestyle that most people seem to adopt. They have no idea that it is dark in the mornings because they seem to get up so late and the shops open at quite ridiculously late hours. Nothing much happens before ten o’clock and you cannot get hold of anybody. I come from a part of the world where people have to get up early because the goods they produce are demanded in the marketplace early in the day. Such an amendment is not about making evenings lighter but mornings darker. If you get up early in the morning, it is dark long enough before the day starts.
I make a serious point about people who live in the countryside: the coldest time of the day is in the early morning. The period of travelling to work coincides with the frostiest of roads. Most rural roads are not gritted; certainly people who come to work at my place must travel on ungritted roads. This is a serious problem if you are starting your work in order to meet markets and get goods in the marketplace at the right time of day. So this measure does not have my personal support, or that of the Opposition.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: I want to question the noble Lord a little on this. I would agree with him about days gone by—around the 1950s—when milk churns were put out at 6 am and cows were milked at that time. I come from a deeply rural area myself where milk tankers now usually collect the milk around midday or 1 pm. This argument of getting goods to market does not really hold as much water—or milk—as it might have done 30 or 40 years ago. If we were to be denied this amendment on the basis of dairy farmers in the Midlands or Scotland, that would not be moving with the times.
Lord Lyell: I am not sure I follow the noble Baroness as I do not know where she lives. On my left we are about to hear a contribution from my noble friend Lord Caithness—he promised he would make it. I would be delighted to offer the noble Baroness one guess where he lives. It is not just “Scotland” or “the Midlands”. I will get my diary out and find out when lighting up time is in Wick, where my noble friend lives.
The arguments I have heard are that it is just lovely; it is quite all right and we can dance around. You are not old enough, but I remember the real
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Above all, we should heed the wise words of my noble friend on the Front Bench, who is I think from Lincolnshire. Even so, he has made a sound point. I hope that the noble Baronesses who supported the amendment with such eloquence might think of those of us who perhaps live in the far north of the country. There is an advantage in the summer, when the days are longer and you do not need to use the lights—though of course in Sweden and Norway we can certainly find evidence that the lights are kept on for various reasons. The noble Baronesses and those who have proposed or supported this amendment might just think that this great United Kingdom of ours stretches a long way; indeed Scotland stretches even further than where I live. I would love to have some support and to hear the views from this Viking of the north, my noble friend.
Lord Rogan: In Ulster, we do not mind getting up in the early hours, in the darkness, if it helps the greater good of our fellow countrymen in the rest of the kingdom.
Lord Puttnam: Is this a reserved or devolved issue?
Lord Woolmer of Leeds: I rise only briefly to remark on the reasons given by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, for resisting the amendment—that it would be unpopular and that is has been tried before and was rejected. If that is the attitude of the Conservative Front Bench in Opposition, heaven help us if they are in government. Many measures dealing with climate change are going to be unpopular. That seems the least convincing explanation. For all the robustness he has asked of the climate change committee, he has fallen at the first hurdle.
Lord Whitty: It is not so long ago that I had some responsibility in this House for road safety and then for agriculture. In the first job, I was told that daylight saving would undoubtedly save lives, and I think that is true. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, needs to look at the road safety statistics. In the second, the farmers were by and large against it. On the other hand, I rather agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, that practices in the countryside, agricultural collections and milking times have changed.
I probably agree with the noble Lords who argue that in Scotland this is not yet so. Reflecting what my noble friend Lord Puttnam just said, it is possible if there are different impacts in different parts of the
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I think that the energy arguments now overtake the arguments on road safety and agriculture and for the greater good we should at least address the issue. No doubt my noble friend will tell us whether we need an amendment to do that. I believe that the issue needs addressing.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach: Perhaps I may speak again as my contribution has been widely attacked. There are specific instances in which people still have market delivery deadlines, although some do not. Perhaps I may speak of a personal interest, which I must declare. We export to continental flower markets, and to catch the ferries we have to start our days early enough for the lorries to get down to the ports to ship the goods across to the Continent. There are circumstances in which people are still linked to rather old-fashioned markets and I happen to be involved in one.
The difficulty is trying to separate the way in which human beings respond to projections of statistics. I accept that this may apply to a whole series of initiatives that are proposed under climate change proposals. We cannot truly predict how people will respond. If mornings are darker, will people get up later? What will be the savings if the working day extends well into the evenings? How will the energy savings be translated? We cannot be absolutely certain that what we are projecting on current behavioural patterns will carry on. I make no apology for expressing a resistance to this proposal because I think that I speak for the vast majority of my fellow citizens.
The Earl of Caithness: The noble Baroness, Lady Billingham, is very eloquent; she was very eloquent in committee and she has been charming and eloquent tonight, as is her wont. However, after what my noble friend Lord Lyell said, I thought that I should say a few words. There is no doubt that this will be gruesomely hard for everyone; climate change will have that effect. If a small number of us are to be penalised, please do not insult us by saying that everyone will benefit. I was a little surprised that the noble Baroness, Lady Billingham, said that there would be a saving for every person in the UK. That is totally untrue. There will be a considerable extra cost to the economy of the north of Scotland because of the geographical situation of the British Isles, the way in which the sun moves and the curvature of the earth.
The noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, said that every young person and every old person will benefit, but that is not true. That is totally false. There is no doubt that it will benefit some in the south, and if the great majority want to impose this on the north, that is democracy and that can happen, but please do not
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Viscount Montgomery of Alamein: The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, talks about the inconvenience for the north of Scotland. Of course he is quite right, but the point is that the percentage of the population who live in the very north of Scotland is very small compared with the percentage of the total population. Others have spoken about the greater good for the larger number of people and we have to look at the percentage of the population that will benefit from such a measure.
The Earl of Caithness: I said that we shall all have to take the pain and there will be an awful lot of pain in a wide variety of areas. All I am saying to the proponents is for goodness’ sake do not insult us by saying that we shall be better off.
9.30 pm
Lord Rooker: I was hoping that this would continue a little while and that there would be no time for me. I have a speaking note to end all speaking notes but I dare not use it, and I shall not seek to make fun of my professional back-up.
There is a bit of a problem here. Personally—and unless I speak personally I am speaking for the Government—I have a good deal of sympathy with the concept. We can go back to the history and, as my noble friend Lord Whitty said, we can look at the various issues, at the various interest groups—whether road safety interests, farmers or anyone else who has to do things—and at the evidence of what happened in 1968, which I remember. We can think about all that and then dismiss it. We are now in a different world. The issue is whether this will help us in respect of climate change and emissions. If it was thought advantageous in that respect then there would be an overwhelming argument in favour, but all I can bring is bad news. By the way, I should say that I am not completely convinced that there is a settled government view on this because in the past couple of years, in Answer to a Question from the noble Lord, Lord Tanlaw, I have heard one department say from this Dispatch Box that it was in favour of it but another department say the opposite. So this can be called an interim statement.
I am sure that the experts will know this, but the Building Research Establishment undertook work for Defra in 2005, only two or three years ago. The study indicated that putting the clocks forward an additional hour in winter and summer would lead to a net increase in carbon dioxide emissions, corresponding to about 1 per cent of total UK emissions, as a result of increased energy consumption in UK buildings for lighting, space heating and cooling. It also showed that a switch to British Summer Time all year round would increase emissions by just under 0.5 per cent. The study was based on modelling patterns of energy use in the UK buildings stock. Even if there were conclusive evidence that a change would reduce emissions—and the evidence is that it would not—the
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I shall not rely on what happened in 1968. We are supposed to be the Government of the present and the future and 1968 is the past. That experiment was abandoned for all sorts of reasons. The situations that apply today did not apply in 1968, so it is quite legitimate to raise this issue. The Building Research Establishment’s research was probably quite narrow and not comprehensive. On the other hand, it is probably not a good idea to lumber the climate change committee with this. However, I hope that the issue keeps being resurrected and that, a bit like nuclear power, in time, it will win.
Baroness Billingham: I thank all noble Lords for taking part in this debate. It certainly livened everybody up. Noble Lords looked terribly bored before, but I have got some daylight saving into this Chamber tonight.
I am taking this particularly seriously. I take the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, to task on this. This is not a light-hearted matter for many people. A few facts may clarify the situation, and if the Minister wants more evidence, I am sure that we can supply it. The difference between the time of daybreak in John o’Groats and in Land’s End is 50 minutes. There is no argument about that; that is the difference. There are regional differences, and I accept them. I realise that Scottish crofters in 1950 or 1960 perhaps had a rough deal, but I do not know that that is the case now.
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