more proposed UK legislation to change the clocks

[Peter Ilieve]

There as a comment piece in the Independent (a UK newspaper) today  
that said that
Lord Tanlaw has proposed changing the UK's timezone. The Independent  
only makes
such stuff available on-line for a fee, but you can see the start of the
piece at <http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/ 
article353873.ece>.
The Cambridge mathematician mentioned is presumably Joseph Myers.

I've looked on the UK Parliament website and it seems Lord Tanlaw  
introduced
his Lighter Evenings (Experiment) Bill on 30 November last year. The
Bill itself and the noble Lord's explanatory notes can be found  
linked from
<http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldbills/ 
048/2006048.htm>.
The initial debate, such as it was, occupies four lines of Hansard at
<http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ldhansrd/pdvn/ 
lds05/text/51130-04.htm#topichd_4>.
(To be fair, the first reading of a Bill is usually like this, just
a formality.) It came up for second reading on 24 March, and the
much more substantial debate can be found at
<http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ldhansrd/pdvn/ 
lds06/text/60324-01.htm#60324-01_head0>.
It was approved and will now go to a committee of the whole house for
its committee stage. If it gets past that it will go to the Commons.

The Bill proposes to move England's time one hour ahead in winter and  
summer
for an experimental period starting in October this year and ending
in October 2009. Scotland would be allowed to opt in to this experiment
by an amendment to the Scotland Act (timezone matters are currently
reserved to Westminster so Scotland can't do it's own thing without
such an amendment). Wales and Northern Ireland would similarly
be allowed to opt in.

Lord Tanlaw has in the past tried and failed to change the legal
definition of the UK's standard time from GMT to UTC. Personally
I don't think he will be any more successful this time. At
the Bill's current rate of progress it's very hard to see
any experiment starting this year even if the principle is
accepted.


		Peter Ilieve		peter at aldie.co.uk