SUMMER TIME (1962) ORDER, 1961 (Hansard, 5 December 1961)

THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (EARL BATHURST)
My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name upon the Order Paper. Summer time is fixed by the Acts of 1922 and 1925 to run from the Sunday following the third Saturday in April (unless that Sunday is Easter day, when it is the Sunday after the second Saturday) to the Sunday after the first Saturday in October. The Act of 1947, however, provided a procedure for varying this period in any particular year, and it is under that Act that this present Order has been laid.
The purpose of the Order is to continue for another year the summer time arrangements adopted this year, which received general assent in both Houses. This arrangement extended the normal statutory period of summer time which I have just mentioned by adding three weeks extra in the spring and three weeks in the autumn. Public reaction appears to have been generally favourable to this experiment. The Government have therefore decided to propose a similar extension for this coming year, 1962; so that summer time will run from March 25 until October 28. In the light of public reaction to this year's experiment, and also of any expressions of view which may be made by your 21 Lordships to-day or by honourable gentlemen in another place next week, we will consider whether some permanent modification of the arrangements laid down in the Acts of 1922 and 1925 should be made.
The chief merit of the modification on the lines of the proposals now put forward for next year would be that an extended period for summer time probably represents the best compromise as between the various interests which must be considered, and would bring the greatest benefit to the largest number of people in the country. My Lords, I beg to move.

§ LORD SILKIN
My Lords, I am sure that most of your Lordships will welcome and approve this statement. But it would he of convenience if we could, as soon as possible, try to make this permanent. It is a little difficult to have this uncertainty from year to year, and now that we shall have tried it for two years, if the general reaction is a favourable one I hope the Government will consider introducing legislation or giving some indication that this is now an established practice.

§ LORD DYNEVOR
My Lords, by "established practice" does the noble Lord mean the extension now proposed or permanent summer time all the year round?

EARL BATHURST
My Lords, I certainly appreciate what the noble Lord has said, but there are many hundreds of thousands of people who will take an opposite view, and I suggest that, in the course of this coming year, we shall be much clearer as to what Her Majesty's subjects would really like.