I’ve pushed back at new proposals to move the clocks forward by an extra hour during the year.
These proposals come from Labour MP for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard, Alex Mayer, who is leading discussion on replacing Daylight Saving Time with “Churchill Time”.
Under Churchill Time, the UK would operate on GMT+1 in winter and GMT+2 in summer. The idea is based on Winston Churchill’s wartime “Double Summer Time”, introduced to save energy and lift morale during the Blitz by ensuring lighter evenings all year round.
Mayer argues that this would be good for road safety, health, business and tourism as well as saving households money on their energy bills. In a debate brought to the House of Commons earlier this year, the UK Government made it clear on their intention to keep DST. The Scottish Government have also agreed that there is no substantiative social or economic case for making any changes to existing arrangements.
In my opinion, using Churchill Time across the whole of the UK ignores the very real differences in the amount of daylight in the North of Scotland during winter, and the South-east of England for instance. Indeed, during the last experiment into adapting this system, the number of people killed or injured in the North of Scotland actually rose. This experiment may now be out of date given it was conducted over 50 years ago, but I believe that safety is a key issue here and that any new changes must be evidence based.
As MP for a constituency in the North-east, my constituents could be disproportionately affected by any changes, and it is interesting to note that organisations like the National Farming Union of Scotland remain sceptical about the benefit of getting rid of DST. I would agree, especially given the changes would mean that the North-east would be in darkness until 10.00am in the winter. As such, I remain unconvinced of Ms Mayer’s proposals.
