UK news: another attempt to change the clocks likely to fail

[Peter Ilieve]

Another attempt to get a bill passed in the UK parliament to move
the clocks forward an hour all year got quite a bit of publicity
last week. Tim Yeo, a fairly senior figure who has been an
environment minister in the past, drew second place in the
ballot for private members bills. No doubt mindful of the topicality
of climate change, he called his attempt to move the clocks
forward an hour the Energy Saving (Daylight) Bill rather than
promising extra daylight. The Bill came up for second reading
(the first real debate) last Friday, 26 January. It passed a
vote (doing much better than Nigel Beard's 2004 attempt) but
there weren't enough MPs present for the vote to count for
anything. That resulted in the debate being adjourned until
tomorrow (2 Feb), but the procedure is such that it is now
extremely unlikely to make further progress.

The Bill is similar to Nigel Beard's one. It would advance
the clocks in England by an hour all year and allow Scotland,
Wales and Northern Ireland to decide whether to follow suit
or not. The main difference is that it would do this for
a trial period, 2008 to 2011, and a review panel would be
established to report on this trial.

The best place to start for details of this is
<http://bills.parliament.uk/DH.asp?title=d>
That page has links to the Bill, the debates and a research
paper about it.

There was also a question asked about this in the Lords on 24 Jan,
which can be found in the Lords Hansard at
<http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200607/ldhansrd/text/ 
70124-0001.htm#07012469000005>

I asked the person responsible for this at the Department of Trade
and Industry for the government's view this morning. He said
the government oppose this Bill. I said I wished people would
stop trying to change the clocks. `You and me both' he said. :-)

I'll send an update if the Bill does make progress.


		Peter Ilieve		peter at aldie.co.uk