HL Deb 23 November 1967 vol 286 cc1182-216

5.10 p.m.

THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM)

My Lords, I beg to move that the British Standard Time Bill be now read a second time. Your Lordships will not perhaps recall reading a letter in the Spectator of October 12, 1907, written by a Dr. Philpots, a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. It read: Sir,—However much Mr. Willett's ideas respecting 'the waste of daylight' may form an attractive target for humorous critics, they would, were they carried out, be a great public benefit. Although I cannot follow him as regards the periodical alteration of clocks, I would suggest that the most practical method of dealing with this matter would be for all Western Europe to adopt what is known as middle Europe time'. This would result in giving that part of the world one hour's more daylight during a substantial part of the year and introduce a uniformity of time which would have numerous advantages, international and other. I think that to adopt literally Mr. Willett's suggestions and introduce spasmodic changes of time would be fatal to his ideas, excellent as they are in spirit". Dr. Philpots went on to say: May I be bold enough to assert that the suggestion I have made commends itself to the intelligence of anyone who will give it the best consideration of an unprejudiced mind? My Lords, the "Middle Europe time" he referred to is, of course, synonymous with the present Central European time which, under another name, the present Bill proposes to bring into force in the United Kingdom. The annals of the Spectator do not tell us what reception Dr. Philpots's letter received, but it has taken us some sixty years to adopt his idea. I am persuaded that it is a good one and will commend itself to your Lordships. You will recollect that my noble friend Lord Raglan spoke on this matter in this House on June 19 last and, in giving a clear exposition of the history of summer time, mentioned that it was William Willett who first put forward the idea that the clock should be advanced one hour in the summer months. He also told us of the sorry fate of successive Daylight Saving Bills which, except for one year, were promoted annually from 1908 to 1914. Indeed, it was not until the middle of the Great War, in 1916, that legislation was eventually passed—and then as a measure for the saving of fuel. The new time that followed the change was designated Summer Time," and so it has remained.

Since then, the actual period of Summer Time has varied, to a greater or lesser degree. But it has persisted for 51 years, and Greenwich Mean Time has not operated throughout a whole year for over half a century. Indeed, in the last war Greenwich Mean Time did not operate internally at all, because in 1940 Summer Time was extended throughout the year, and even a period of "Double Summer Time" was introduced in 1941. These arrangements lapsed when peace returned. During the serious fuel crisis in 1947, however, an Act was passed to enable the period of Summer Time to be varied for any year by Order in Council, and the period which ended on October 29 last was governed by such an Order. Your Lordships will remember that during the last Session we had an interesting, and I think profitable, debate on the Summer Time Order 1967, the object of which is to cover the interval next year before the proposals in this Bill come into effect. Under that Order Summer Time starts on February 18, 1968, some four or five weeks earlier than it has done previously. One of the objects of this earlier start of Summer Time was, as I then explained to your Lordships, to accustom people to the permanent change we are now considering.

So much for the transitional period and the precedents. It might at this stage, however, be helpful if I sketched in the events since 1960 leading up to this present Bill. In that year a questionnaire about Summer Time was sent to some 180 organisations, representing a very wide variety of interests. The answers showed that there was an almost even division of opinion between those who wanted the equivalent of Summer Time throughout the year and those who did not. As the "antis", however, included some important special interests, it was decided—partly as an experiment and partly to test public reaction—to extend the period of Summer Time so as to cover the whole of the period from the end of March to the end of October; that is, some seven months. This arrangement has operated for the last seven years.

In recent years there has been increased pressure for continuous Summer Time. Further consultations were, therefore, undertaken last winter to obtain up-to-date views. These covered both the economic and social aspects of a change. More than 80 organisations, representing all walks of life, including both sides of industry and agriculture, teachers, local authorities, social workers, organisations connected with sport, and many others, including 22 different organisations solely related to Scotland, were consulted. It is in the light of these consultations that this measure has been introduced.

My Lords, it is not true that the Government's decision to adopt permanent Summer Time has been dictated by what might be termed Common Market considerations. It is of course true that the change now contemplated will benefit our commercial transactions with the Continent of Europe. We calculate indeed that the gain in business contact hours by telephone or Telex will be of the order of some 20 per cent.; and that will be a considerable advantage, whether this country is within the Common Market or not. But this is only one factor in the equation, to which due weight has been given, but no more.

If we consider the whole of the economic field—including effects on productivity and the consumption of fuel and power no less than communications and transport—the general conclusion that emerges is that the advantages and disadvantages of the change will be pretty evenly balanced. We would not dispute, for instance, that it will cause some difficulties to the outdoor industries of agriculture and construction, though less than has often been supposed. There is a tendency, we believe, to underestimate what can be done through changes in working hours; and it is significant that the National Union of Agricultural Workers, for one, approve what we are doing, and that the opposition of the National Farmers' Union is notably less than it was in 1960. On the other side, there will be solid benefits for transport, both international and domestic. The change will help the ports, the railways, airline operators and, we believe, road haulage. The effect on the fuel industry will be largely neutral, with the important exception of electricity generation. Here the effect will be to shift much of the peak load from the late afternoon to the morning. Some years ago this would have given rise to problems, but we are advised that, with the increase of generating capacity, by the winter of next year it should no longer do so.

Had the economic considerations been all, the Government might have hesitated to take the step which I now recommend. But if we turn to the social considerations a much sharper picture emerges. Here, too, there have been misconceptions. It seems to be quite commonly believed, for instance, that the change will increase the danger of road accidents. Our information is quite to the contrary, because it should lead to a higher proportion of travel falling within the daylight hours. All the principal teachers' organisations in England and Wales support the change, because they think it preferable that children should come to school in the dark rather than return home in the dark. It has incontestable advantages for outdoor sport, entertainment and leisure-time activities in general; and certainly in England and Wales it has clear majority support among every section of opinion whom we consulted on the social implications, whether for the young, the working population, or the aged. The Trades Union Congress were strongly in favour of it—

LORD CONESFORD

My Lords, if the noble Lord is leaving the education authorities, which he has mentioned in England and Wales, can he say what the view was in Scotland?

LORD STONHAM

The view in Scotland was varied: it was not unanimously in favour. We consulted 22 different organisations solely related to Scotland and their view was not unanimous. The Scottish Trades Union Congress, for example, were in favour. The Trades Union Congress here were strongly in favour of it, as was the Confederation of British Industry. And even in Scotland, where, as is understandable, opinion was a great deal more divided than South of the Border, we were surprised at the considerable degree of support to be found. The local and education authorities in Scotland were generally opposed, though not all of them were; and, as I have just mentioned, the Scottish Trades Union Congress were as much in favour as their English colleagues.

This is not, my Lords, an issue that easily lends itself to scientific or cost analysis. It affects every one of us as individuals in our domestic habits no less than in our working lives. The most impressive feature of our most recent inquiry was the movement of opinion which it showed. While in 1960 the balance of representative opinion was even, it has now tipped most decidedly in favour of change. It is for this reason that the Government believe that this measure will not only be to the advantage of the country, but is what the community as a whole both want and expect. May I add that, as a side advantage, it will bring to an end the bi-annual crop of complaints, particularly from parents with young children, from farmers about the difficulties of educating their cows as to the right time to let down their milk, from compilers of timetables and diaries, and, more recently, from the owners of heating appliances controlled by time switches.

I now turn to the question of the name for the new system, which, so far as I am able to judge, is the only real controversy outstanding. Your Lordships will remember that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary undertook in another place to consider any suggestions as to what this permanent Summer Time should be called. More than a hundred different names were received from many sources, including Members of Parliament, the public and the Press. Two newspapers ran readers' competitions, and one of them chose "British standard time" which was easily the most popular choice among the letters received, and this was the title chosen by my right honourable friend, after careful consideration of all the alternatives. It appears to be a general wish that the word "British" should appear in the title, and "standard", I think your Lordships will agree, indicates clearly and concisely the object of the measure, which is to prescribe the time for general purposes. There is also the advantage that the initials B.S.T. retain those of the now familiar British Summer Time.

I myself was struck by the fact that in regard to the many suggestions made, some of those which appear to be sensible when one first looks at them become perhaps unacceptable when one examines them, particularly in an abbreviated or initial form. For example, "Western European time"—W.E.T.—might be regarded as a most unfair description of the British climate or "British European Time "—B.E.T.—might be taken as describing one of our growing national weaknesses. There are many others one can think of in that way.

There has been a suggestion that in making our choice we are detracting somewhat from the unique world-wide status of Greenwich Mean Time and sowing confusion between that time system and this. My Lords, I do not believe it; any more than I believe it caused confusion to me when on television I heard the Americans refer to sending rockets to the moon by "Eastern Standard Time", which was something seen and heard all over the world. However, I shall be very ready to argue this matter in Committee. Meanwhile, your Lordships will observe the special emphasis given in the Bill to the preservation of Greenwich Mean Time in the field of astronomy, meteorology and navigation.

It is customary, in introducing a measure in your Lordships' House, to conclude with a brief explanation of its provisions. But this is one of those, unhappily, rare cases in which the measure itself is so short and direct that no explanation is really called for. I can assure your Lordships that there are no hidden snares in the drafting, and that what Clauses 2 and 3 provide in respect of Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man gives effect to the wishes of the authorities of those territories. Quite simply the measure is applied to them, but since the subject is within their domestic jurisdiction they are at the same time empowered to replace it by enactments of their own. And it is largely to allow time for this that, under Clause 4, the date of operation has been deferred to the last possible time, October 27, 1968, when it will coincide—all but for two hours—with the expiry of the Summer Time Order 1967. Our understanding is that none of the territories which I have mentioned will wish to depart in any way from the practice in Great Britain, although certain of them may wish to enshrine that practice in their own laws.

It remains for me only to commend the Bill to the House. I do so with confidence in the belief that industry and the public in this country will quite readily adapt themselves to the change, and that, while there may be—indeed, I think there are—those who, for business or personal reasons, would quite reasonably prefer that it should not have been made, I am firmly convinced that all the evidence goes to prove that the great majority of the country will endorse it and enjoy—even at the cost of getting up rather earlier than usual on dark and cold winter mornings—the many and great advantages that this measure will bring.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Stonham.)

5.30 p.m.

LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR

My Lords, I think we shall all wish to thank the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, for the clarity and conciseness of his explanation of this Bill. With studied courtesy he suggested that not every one of your Lordships might recollect the letter of Dr. Philpots in October, 1907, conveying, at any rate to my mind, that that was one of the things which he noted when in the nursery, with a remarkable prescience that 60 years later he might be the Minister of State at the Home Office and presenting this important Bill to Parliament.

My only regret about his speech was that he did not suggest at all that the Government were approaching this change in an experimental frame of mind. I should have thought that was necessary, because nobody can tell for certain how popular or unpopular this is going to be. Each winter we are going to have novel arrangements which we have not experienced except under the artificial conditions of war time, and it really is impossible to foresee what the actual reaction will be in various sections of the community, or indeed in various parts of the country. Of course, I fully realise that, even as an experiment, such a change could not be tried without legislation. It is necessary to alter the law if we are to see what it is like in winter to have the sky an hour darker in the morning and an hour lighter in the evening.

There is an extremely interesting map, which I expect a number of your Lordships will have studied, in The Times this morning showing what the time of sunrise will be in different parts of the British Isles at the darkest period of the year, should this Bill become law. The one thing which one can read off that map straight away is that the general feeling in, shall I say, the North of Scotland is likely to be somewhat different, at any rate, front the general reaction to these new arrangements in the South-East of England, which the sun reaches first. I shall not be surprised if noble Lords wish to question the Government further about the views expressed not only from Scotland, but also from Wales—because the day starts later in Wales as well—about the probable implications of this change for the people themselves.

Let me say at once that I personally welcome the idea of making this experiment. I favour it as an experiment worth trying, but I certainly would not seek to support it as about to become a "law of the Medes and Persians" which could never be changed, if, indeed, the popular reaction in different parts of the country after practical experience was adverse. I have a special interest in the matter, because I was the Minister responsible from 1962 to 1964. Whereas up till 1964 the periods of Summer Time were fixed by Order annually for a year ahead, I initiated what I think was an improvement: that of fixing them for three years ahead, which appeared to me to be more satisfactory from the point of view of diary publishers and many other people. I think that this change was generally welcomed, and that Order which I brought forward in 1964 in fact gave the country one more week of Summer Time than had been the case in the previous few years.

Of course, I was informed of the 1960 inquiries by the Home Office, but in 1964 I should certainly have thought it premature to try all-the-year-round Summer Time, even as an experiment. It was quite clear to me that there still were objections, though I was also aware that they were less loudly voiced, even at that time, than they had been perhaps ten years earlier. Frankly, I had in mind in 1964 that in three years' time—that is, in I967—a successor of mine would probably order fresh inquiries. That, I understand, is just what has happened, and the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has given your Lordships some of the results of those inquiries. It certainly had become apparent to me that the objections previously so strongly voiced by the farming community had lessened materially, at any rate in England and Wales.

I should like to have rather more assurance from the Government that the electricity supply authorities are confident that they can meet the need. On that account alone I should not have dared in 1964 to propose all-the-year-round Summer Time, because there certainly was not then sufficient margin of generating capacity to ensure that the additional load which one would get in the dark hours of the morning could be met. It is not simply that more light will be required, but also that the early morning hours are cold, and therefore the heating load, on top of the lighting load, will be very heavy. It would be a disaster for the whole cause which the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has at heart if one of the first things to happen were load-shedding in the early hours of the day during the winter of 1968 because the electricity supply industry had misjudged demand in relation to the available supply. I think that this is perhaps one of the most important material points on which Parliament should be fully satisfied.

I was interested in what the noble Lord said about traffic and road safety, and that aspect also needs to be examined somewhat further in our debates with reference to the accident-proneness of drivers in the cold early hours, when, clearly, there will be more traffic on the road than if we continued with our present arrangements for the winter. Very naturally, the whole of the business community which does business with the Continent is keen for a change, and I think the strongest opponents of the Bill will recognise that as a factor to be put into the scales.

Broadly, I feel that it is desirable that this experiment should be tried, but I should be much happier if the Government would make it clear that they regard it as an experiment and will study with objective care, in the spring and summer of 1969, what the country then thinks about it. I do not believe that at this stage we should commit ourselves, mentally, further than that. I should hope that the Government would be prepared in early 1969 to carry out a further inquiry into how people have enjoyed darker mornings and lighter evenings in the winter.

As to the terms of the Bill, I am sure we shall all welcome subsection (2) of Clause 1 which safeguards the use of Greenwich mean time for scientific purposes. As a former Home Secretary I personally welcome Clause 3 and the degree of independence that it guarantees to the States of Jersey and Guernsey and to Tynwald; and I can imagine that if our ranks here, as in another place, had lately been strengthened by some noble Lord or noble Baroness from Scotland, he or she might claim that this proved the necessity to have a Scottish Parliament, which could opt in or out of the system of British standard time according to Scotland's real needs.

Finally, my Lords, as to the name, I do not think that we ought to set much store by the fact that the initials of British standard time are the same as the initials of British Summer Time. That does not seem to me to be any great argument. Strong objections were raised, in a cogent letter to The Times of October 24, by a number of people holding important official positions. I will not go in detail now into the question of the name, because I strongly suspect that some noble Lords will wish to put down Amendments when we reach the Committee stage so that alternative names can be canvassed. Speaking only for myself, I regret that we are omitting the word "Greenwich" entirely from the name of the new time. I should certainly have thought that some name such as "Advanced Greenwich Time", or with the addition of some other adjective to the two words "Greenwich Time", would have been well worth considering, and rather more traditional than this new name of British standard time. But I feel sure that, if a large number of alternative names have been submitted to the Home Office, the best of them will doubtless be selected by noble Lords to be made the subject of Amendments which they will put down, and then we shall be able to discuss them one by one.

My Lords, I personally think that this Bill should be supported, but as an experiment and not as an unalterable change in our social arrangements. I hope that its advocates will have their case proved, and that its opponents will find that their arguments lessen, in the light of practice. Clearly, we are going to have this system in the winter of 1968–69, and we shall all know better at the end of that time. But the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, will facilitate the progress of this Bill if he will give some kind of undertaking that the Government will be prepared to make fresh inquiries as to the reactions of various sections of the people when we have had this Bill in operation for a whole winter.

5.44 p.m.

LORD ROWLEY

My Lords, I rise to support the Bill. It seems to me to be an inevitable development of what has taken place over the last sixty years. Like the noble Lord who has just spoken, I am not very impressed with the prospect that this is something permanent. Of course, nothing in law is permanent. The noble Lord who has just spoken would agree with me, I think, that there will be nothing to prevent another Parliament, or even this Parliament, amending or repealing any Act, such as this one, which is found to be unsatisfactory and not to meet with the support and approval of large sections of the community.

I also agree with the noble Lord in his reference to the title. I am glad that we have got away from the term "Summer Time". I have always preferred the phrase which is used in the United States—"daylight saving time". In April, 1924, in my first Parliament, I was asked by the late Sir Kingsley Wood to second the introduction of his Bill, which, like other enactments, was called a Summer Time Bill. Some of the criticisms that were made during the debate then were directed at the farce of calling any Bill a Summer Time Bill in a country where no season merits the description "summer".

While a good many of the misgivings that were expressed in that particular debate seem to have disappeared over the years, I should be inclined to go along with the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, in saying that the Government should undertake to satisfy themselves by inquiries as from October of next year, and during the months that follow, whether or not considerable sections of the community are put into an impossible position. I think that the Government should consider giving an undertaking on these lines. At the same time, as I said a moment ago, I do not believe that there will be any great objection after we have had an experimental period, because so many of the objections that were expressed in the debate to which I have referred seem now to have disappeared.

My Lords, the advancement of our clocks by an hour is now sought to be made permanent. As the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said, the first such Act that was passed was in 1916, when I, like others present, were engaged in France in the trench warfare of that period. I do not think it made much difference to the carrying on of hostilities, but if my recollection is correct I believe that there was the strong feeling that it helped a great deal those who were engaged on war work in the factories and in other places. The Act of 1916 provided only, of course, for the duration of the war; and then in 1922 another Act was passed making it operative for another twelve months. Sir Kingsley Wood's object in introducing his Bill in April, 1924, was to make it permanent, but only between the months of, roughly, April and October. The Second Reading of that Bill was carried, but it was overtaken by events—in other words, the General Election of 1924. The Conservative Government which followed presented the Bill again, and it became law in August, 1925. It is from that date that for the period from April, approximately, to October, it became a permanent part of our way of life.

Now this Bill is seeking to extend that permanent six-month period to a twelvemonth period. Therefore, the controversy which will follow can only be on the part of those who object even to the permanent six-month period of Summer Time, daylight saving time, or whatever you like to call it. At the same time, there may well be criticism from Scotland, because in the debate to which I have referred it was Scottish Members of Parliament, both those belonging to my Party and those belonging to the Conservative Party, who were very strongly critical even of the Bill that Sir Kingsley Wood had introduced. I have no doubt—and reference has been made by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, to this—that there are sections of people in Scotland, and possibly in Wales, as well as, possibly, in parts of England, who have some doubt as to what will be the effect of making this advance of one hour a permanent feature for the whole twelve months of the year.

A reasonable suggestion has been made by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, and I am quite sure that my noble friend Lord Stonham will not be giving anything away in the fundamental approach to this Bill if he agrees, at least, to consider the suggestion that the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, has made. Subject to that, I believe this is a necessary step to bring ourselves into uniformity with Western Europe, and I believe that on the whole once the people have experienced this extra hour in the winter, the possibility of widespread objection will not be realised. All I would say again is that I for one welcome this Bill.

5.50 p.m.

LORD CRAIGMYLE

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Rowley, as he got to his feet said that he was rising to support this Bill. I should like to echo him with a modest difference: I rise to oppose this Bill. All my life I have thought that Summer Time, daylight saving time, is a piece of nonsense. I can remember the day when I was a very small boy when I was converted to this belief. I then had to learn, as I have no doubt very many of your Lordships in childhood had to learn, the ditty by Robert Louis Stevenson: In winter I get up at night and dress by yellow candle-light; In summer, just the other way, I have to go to bed by day. Young as I was, it did not surprise me that I did not use a candle to get up in the winter although I knew it was dark. I realised that we had the benefit of electricity which Stevenson did not. It was some time ago. He was a contemporary of my grandfather. Nor did it surprise me that I had to go to bed by day in the summer. We spent our summer holidays in Aberdeenshire, and I knew perfectly well that in Aberdeenshire in the summer, even the grown-ups went to bed by day. So neither of these things surprised me at all. I therefore inquired of my learned pedagogue: "Please Sir, what do these lines mean?" He was taken somewhat aback at the query; and then, after a pause, he said, "Well, of course, they do not ring true nowadays because of daylight saving." That did not ring true to me, even as a little boy; and it does not ring true to me now. I wonder whether any of your Lordships have ever seen or heard a demonstration of the proposition that "fudging" the clocks by one hour in the summer could save even a fraction of a split second of daylight to any man, woman, child or beast in the field on the face of God's earth. How can one save daylight by falsifying the clocks? It is really a most strange name, "daylight saving". However, now we are being asked to falsify the clocks not just in the summer; but all the year round.

There seem to me to be two practical solutions of this problem in international communications. One was suggested in the newspapers a few days ago (I think in the correspondence columns) which seems to me to be the ultimate answer: it is to have one clock setting for the whole world and for every country to organise its own timetables around a given clock setting. But I am afraid that world opinion will not quite wear that. Indeed, it may be many years before it will. We are therefore driven back on to regional time zones, the system that we have at present and which might be described, I think, borrowing a phrase from another context, as cujus regio, ejus tempus. But if we are to work our clocks on a regional time zone basis, let us at least do it upon a sensible basis. What is a sensible basis? A sensible basis is that when the clock says it is mid-day, it shall be mid-day. You cannot do that for every village along the way. You have to do it as nearly so as is convenient.

A convenient system for this country was thought by our ancestors to be to base the clock upon the Royal Observatory at Greenwich. Well, that was a quite reasonably good base. But Greenwich is not by any means in the middle of this country. It is in the far South-East. There is only a very small proportion of England—Kent, Sussex and most of East Anglia—which is East of the Greenwich meridian. Most of the rest—the whole of Wales, all Scotland and all Northern Ireland—is to the West of it. Supposing this had been done in the last century when one considered the whole of Ireland as part of the United Kingdom, to get a proper base for time for the whole British Isles I think probably 4° West might have been chosen, on the line roughly of Plymouth, Swansea and Inverness; and that would divide the country more or less evenly. But Greenwich is was; and Greenwich we still have. If Greenwich, therefore, is to be criticised, it is to be criticised because it is already too far East. The proposal now is to put our base line 15° further East—the longtitude of the Lofoten Islands and of Frankfurt—beyond Frankfurt, in fact—and Catania in Sicily. This would mean that the Western-most parts of the Kingdom—take our Western-most city, Londonderry—would be permanently nearly 1½ hours behind the time base. The Irish city of Galway would be over 1½ hours.

But longtitude is not the only consideration. My noble friend Lord Brooke of Cumnor has already mentioned the interesting article and very interesting illustrations that went with it in to-day's Times. Everyone knows that we get longer nights in winter and longer days in summer in Scotland than down here; but I wonder how many noble Lords who saw that illustration were not surprised at the extent of the difference which latitude makes. In winter sunrise times, there is more than half an hour's difference between London and Aberdeen on the basis of latitude alone. If you combine these two factors (the winter difference in the sunrise on the basis of latitude and the normal difference on the basis of longitude) and remember how steeply these Islands slope as you go North towards the West, you will realise that the proposal to put the time base 15° East is going to cause a very considerable change in their way of life to people in the North and West.

I have not taken the extreme case of the Shetland Islands, nor shall I now take the extreme case of December 21 or 22. But let me give the times at which the sun will rise on December 15 under the new so-called British Standard Time. In Kirkwall, it is at one minute to ten; in Stornaway, five minutes past ten; and in Londonderry, a quarter to ten. That is the middle of the morning! Are we seriously to ask people to take their mid-morning cup of tea to the window and watch the sunrise?

One must face, if one lives in the North, that one is going to have very little daylight in the winter days. Clearly then, one must use the daylight one has to the best effect; that is to say, it should be straddled as near as possible around mid-day. This will be quite impossible if this Bill becomes law. There seems to me to be little enough justification for the Bill, in spite of the assurances of the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, even in England; and probably less in Wales. But in Scotland and in Northern Ireland there is absolutely no justification for it whatsoever. Unless the Government agree—which I am sure they will not—to exclude Scotland and Northern Ireland from the Bill and let us in our tiny little United Kingdom have two times going, then the best thing they can do with the Bill is to consign it with all decent haste to the nearest convenient waste paper basket.

6.0 p.m.

LORD RAGLAN

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Stonham very much for his kindly reference to my efforts in your Lordships' House in June, when I asked an Unstarred Question on this subject and gave all the arguments I could think of in favour of the permanent change which is proposed in the Bill. I do not propose to weary your Lordships by repeating those arguments, most of which have been given this evening by my noble friend. I will content myself with expressing the opinion that chopping off one hour of daylight at one end of the day and putting it on at the other will bring great pleasure and benefit to most people.

I should like to say to the noble Lord, Lord Craigmyle, that I think there is a good deal in what he said; but perhaps, before continuing in his belief, he would like to read the evidence taken by a House of Commons Select Committee in 1908 which may be found in your Lordships' Library. If he will do so, I think that he will find it most interesting and informative. It makes one regard the matter from a slightly different angle from that taken by the noble Lord.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, that nobody knows the precise effect which the provisions in this Bill will have, and I wonder whether they might be brought in for an experimental period of, say, three or five years. I will not say any more, except that I have no strong opinions about what the Title of the Bill should be. I do not think that "Greenwich" should necessarily be incorporated in it. I think that we might perhaps incorporate Hurstmonceux. But "British standard time" sounds to me comfortable and sensible, and I hope that both the Title and the Bill will commend themselves to your Lordships.

6.2 p.m.

LORD FERRIER

My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, for introducing the Bill and for the careful and painstaking way in which he did it. At the same time I am not quite happy about a number of points to which I proposed to refer.

Turning to the Question by the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, which was debated in the summer, it is well to remember (this is a point which I have made before in your Lordships' House) that the debate took place on a Monday. That is an important reason why no Scotsmen took part in it at all—unless the intervention of the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, with some reference to dawn on New Year's Day, may be taken as such. Indeed, if one reads the debate, although Glasgow is twice mentioned—and, of course, Glasgow is on the West side of Scotland—the word "Scotland" or "Scotsman" does not appear at all.

As for the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Rowley, that to oppose this Bill must mean that one is opposed to Summer Time altogether, I do not agree; and I would not go the whole way with the noble Lord, Lord Craigmyle: that because I oppose this Bill I am opposed to Summer Time—far from it. I understand that under the present Summer Time it is possible to play 18 holes of golf at Aberdeen in July and to tee off at 11 p.m. I feel there are definite advantages in having Summer Time as it is now—with the exception of the Order beginning on February 18—and I feel that they are worth taking into account.

When the Order which we debated in July was considered I mentioned the problem of Northern Scotland, and I thought, wrongly as it has turned out, that a Bill would not be laid before this House until after the February experiment. In this I go some way with the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor. I felt at that time that it was to be experimental, and I would quote what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, that this was a matter of the change which we shall be discussing next year."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18/7/67, col. 215.] In other words, I thought that this was going to be discussed after the experiment of early Summer Time on February 18 had been introduced. I would remind your Lordships that next year on February 18 sunrise in Aberdeen will be at 7.40 Greenwich Mean Time or 8.40—

LORD STONHAM

My Lords, will the noble Lord allow me to intervene? I have here the Reort of what I said. I said: Your Lordships will know the Government recently announced in another place their intention of introducing legislation early next Session to extend throughout the year …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18/7/67, col. 209.] I made quite clear that it was early in the Session which we are now in.

LORD FERRIER

I agree that the noble Lord said that, but at the same time, in column 215, he used the words: a very great preponderance of opinion in favour of the change which we shall be discussing next year. Perhaps the noble Lord meant "next Session". Frankly, as the noble Lord will see from the speech which I made on that occasion, I said that we should address ourselves to this as an experiment, because the actual hardship which it causes in the North of Scotland is a matter which, as the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, has said, really ought to be approached in a very cautious way. What worried me however was this reference in his speech to accustom people to the permanent change to be made later."—[col. 210.] I protested at the time that this sounded as though there was to be no question about it, and I wonder whether that was a "toot" from the whistle of the "Westminster steamroller" which we now see in action. Be that as it may, I opposed the idea then and I oppose it now.

I think another noble Lord has mentioned Sir Alan Herbert's letter which appeared in The Times the other day. It was interesting and of course entertaining, but there was one point which Sir Alan omitted and to which I am glad to say the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, made only a passing reference: that was, the contention among many of the supporters of this measure that we should go along with Europe. I cannot see the point of that, beyond the fact that people who want to telephone to Paris when the market opens may have to get up a bit earlier than they would have to do under the new proposals. After all, in North America there are four main time zones, and nobody would suggest that a Californian is less a citizen of the United States than somebody in Pennsylvania.

As for our getting into Europe, of which I am prepared to be in favour, would a different time scale make us any more European? No, my Lords, I consider it would have been wise to defer this Bill until next year. I will not go over the points which have been referred to already by the noble Lord, Lord Rowley, about daylight saving in wartime. This is not a measure for daylight saving; it is a measure for improving conditions for a number of the populace. But I doubt whether all the savings which it is indicated may go with the introduction of this proposal, will apply in the North. I shall not use many of my notes about the hours of daylight in the North. I would only emphasise that the problem, as was said by the noble Lord, Lord Craigmyle, is not one of longitude only but also of latitude. For instance, Glasgow and Inverness are on the same meridian, but there is getting on for 15 minutes difference between the times of sunrise in the middle of the winter. In fact in Inverness in the middle of winter the sunrise under the new Bill would be at 9.57 a.m. That is a very late hour for the sun to rise, far less for it to become light.

The noble Lord said that the majority of women's organisations have accepted this proposal, but I should like to know to what extent women's organisations in Scotland feel able to agree. I venture to say that in the North of Scotland they would not support it, and I have reason to say that parents' associations are seriously disturbed, because children will have to go to school, not one or two hours, but almost three hours, before it is light.

Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, when he comes to reply, will be able to give us more information along these lines. Even in the neighbourhood where I live, South of Edinburgh, getting children to school will be a serious matter. In the winter, it is extremely cold, far colder than it ever is in England, and the road conditions—not so much because of traffic as because of weather conditions—are bad.

We have been told that the President of the Scottish National Farmers' Union, who did not like the idea or see the need for it, was prepared "to put up with it, if it is in the national interest". But is it? I should require evidence that it was in the interests of the nation as a whole before I believed it. Perhaps my noble friend Lord Cork and Orrery, who is to follow me, will be able to prove that there is reasonable doubt in this matter. The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, touched on the effect on farmers. Farmers are already affected by the disadvantage of the present system, which requires changes twice a year in the handling of dairy stock, and this new proposal will affect farmers more than other folk.

We must also remember that costs are bound to increase in the North in the conditions which are likely to arise if the Bill becomes law. I refer especially to the construction trade where, because of the climate in the North of Scotland, modern methods are not so easily adopted, and costs in terms of overtime will be higher if the dawn is made so late in terms of the clock.

I think I have said enough to indicate that if we divide on this Bill, as I hope we shall, I shall vote "Not-Content". But if the Bill is read a second time I would beg your Lordships to consider three things: first, that the Title of the Bill should be amended in Committee; secondly, that it should not be tabled in another place, unless it is the Government's intention to steamroller it through, until we have seen what happens in early February under the Order which has already been passed; and thirdly, that if it becomes law, the Scottish Electricity Boards should be instructed to go thoroughly into the question of off-peak tariffs. It is all very well to say, as the noble Lord said, that electricity power supplies will be maintained, but what about the people who are to consume the power? And what was this reference to the makers of time-switches? What have they to do with it? Surely, they have to design switches which will enable consumers to make the best possible use of the power available.

I particularly wish to make the point that people will have to use more electricity in the morning peak hours, and I sincerely hope that, as the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cu =or, has said, the generating powers will not be overstretched. The peak hours of consumption should be adjusted in terms of zones, for the North of Scotland, the South of Scotland and for England, so that people who want warmth can have their thermal storage type heaters boosted up in the morning and can get power when they need it in the early morning, when they have these long hours of darkness before lunch, as they will have if this Bill becomes law. I believe that this measure is so controversial that the House will want to divide, if only to show that is the case.

6.16 p.m.

THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY

My Lords, there cannot be one noble Lord who did not hear the words of the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, in introducing this Bill with anything but the warmest pleasure. But I think that I detected a charming note of almost insouciance in the approach of the Government towards this Bill. It showed itself at the beginning of the noble Lord's speech, and chronologically speaking at the beginning of the Bill itself. I hope your Lordships will forgive me for referring to this rather tedious question of the Title.

It reminds me of the building of the South Bank Exhibition in 1951. Perhaps your Lordships will recall the tremendous debate in the newspapers as to what this great Exhibition was to be called. I cannot recall any of the names then suggested, but right in the middle of the debate somebody wrote to the papers and said that it did not matter what kind of name was given to it, it was on the South Bank, and whatever might be decided it would be called the South Bank Exhibition. That is what happened. It became the South Bank Exhibition.

We have had all sorts of suggestions put forward, and we have had the pleasure of hearing some of them this afternoon, about what this time proposed in the Bill will be called. I predict that it will be called "mid-European Time"—because this is what it is called already. Mid-European Time is an international name for a time zone which is used all over the world, as Greenwich Mean Time and Eastern Standard Time are used now. What is proposed under the Bill is simply a sidestep to the East chronologically of one pace, out of the time zone Greenwich Mean into the time zone mid-European. Three countries that were originally in the Greenwich time zone have preceded us in this direction—France, Luxembourg and Spain. For reasons of their own convenience they have taken this step already, leaving with us only Portugal, Ireland and the Faroe Islands. The Greenwich time zone is a small one in terms of countries, because most of it is covered with water.

If we take this one step, we shall become the 35th partner in a club of 34 other members, of all those people who use mid-European time. We are proposing to call it, according to this Bill, British Standard Time. I must say, as a patriotic person, that I am inclined to approve of this Title, and I look forward to the day when we shall join the Common Market and, looking forward quite a long way, when we in these right little tight little Islands will refer to it as the British Economic Community. I think I detect a certain insouciance—if I may be forgiven for repeating the word—running through the whole of the approach to this Bill. The noble Lord has told us, with impressive effect and perfectly correctly, of the number of bodies that have been consulted and whose opinions have been sought on various aspects of this piece of legislation. But I am not certain that all the relevant bodies have been consulted, or that those that have been consulted have in fact consulted the people most closely concerned.

I will leave that for the moment and come back to it; it will be a kind of continuing theme. I will come to the first example of this straight away by mentioning an example of a somewhat curious side-effect which has not been mentioned by any noble Lord so far. I take it as an example because I imagine that there are others I have not discovered. I am now referring to the somewhat curious position of a transatlantic passenger by air, particularly in the supersonic age. When the Concord comes, I understand, to my alarm, that it will be possible to fly from London to New York in about two and a half hours. This will enable an East-borne passenger who takes off from London Airport at, say, noon to finish his after-luncheon glass of port in nice time to be ready for breakfast on touch-down at half-past eight. On the return journey, strangely enough, the timing will be precisely the same. He will take off at noon and arrive at 8.30, but in the evening, just in time for dinner, if he is ready for it so immediately after lunch.

The point of this problem is not entirely a gastronomic one; there is something a little deeper involved than that—if the adjective is not ill-chosen. It is this. What is the effect of flying through six time zones at any speed, but particularly at high speed, instead of the five time zones through which the trans-Atlantic flier has to fly now? It is well known that flying through five time zones causes considerable upset to the nervous and metabolic clocks inside the human system, and sometimes a considerable period of recuperation is required at the other end if one is to be fit to take part in, say, an international conference. What is the result of flying through six time zones? This is a problem that must, I feel—I am prepared to bet on it—have been investigated by aviation medicine. It is part of the basic research that must go into the building and design of the Concord. I should like to ask the noble Lord whether he can tell us in his reply if this particular research report has been asked for and, if so, what it is. I might even add a rider and say, if not, why not? It is not enough to dismiss it airily and think that the result will be simply to require the passenger to have a longer rest when he reaches his destination, which would be very agreeable, especially for those travelling at the public charge on expense accounts. This is a matter of public health, and one that will increase rapidly in importance as the years go by.

The noble Lord said, with admirable fairness and objectivity, if I do not misquote him, that the commercial advantages and disadvantages of this measure are very approximately balanced, one against another. At the same time, I should like to make a point which perhaps might upset this balance in favour of the opponents of the Bill. I refer to the suggestion (it is one that is mentioned in the newspapers, and therefore perhaps it is worth disposing of in your Lordships' House) that by getting into his office at nine o'clock in the morning in London, when his friend in Brussels or in Rome or Berlin or anywhere else has already been there one hour, and by going out to lunch at one, when his friend in one of those places goes out at twelve, the businessman loses two hours of telephoning time a day. Well, he does. He can get this back by staggering his time, which is a point that has already been made in the debate. What I should like to know is this. If this is important, are any of the people who think it is important doing it now, or are they not? How many businessmen are getting to their office an hour early or going an hour early out to lunch? Because if to the smallest degree we are to be persuaded to get up earlier in the morning in order to enable a few businessmen to be punctual at lunch at one o'clock at the Savoy Grill, I personally am not for it.

I now come to the question of children. This matter has been mentioned all through the debates on this subject. We are told that the National Union of Teachers feel that it is better for children to have the extra hour of daylight in the evening, and are prepared, against that, to accept the morning dark. I have here a graph which is reasonably accurate, and I think it might be of interest if I were to say that all people, including children, who leave home at seven o'clock in the morning now will find that the Bill will make no difference to them. They will still leave at or before dawn. If they leave at half-past seven, they will get one more extra month of darkness, by which I mean the time up to dawn: admittedly it is not entirely dark. If anybody leaves at the more gentlemanly hour of eight o'clock, he now leaves in daylight; but he will find, to his surprise, that under the Bill he will have four months of darkness—that is to say, time at or before dawn—including one whole hour of darkness in the middle of the winter.

Hundreds of thousands of these people are children. The point, so far as they are concerned, is probably not so much that it is dark, but that it is cold and miserable. I am certain that I am not alone among your Lordships in remembering what it is like to get up in the dark and go to school in the dark, and to arrive with chilblains, as I did. Perhaps they do not have chilblains nowadays. But it is not true to suppose that children get up and get into a warm bath and trundle off comfortably to the school and can do the whole thing between eight and nine o'clock. I do not live in the North of Scotland; I live fifty miles South of here, in a small village. Now, under Greenwich mean time, the children from that village start their journey to school, two miles away, with a twenty-minute walk in the dark to catch a bus. They are the lucky ones. Two miles away, children catching the same bus get up two hours earlier, not because they have to walk further to catch the bus, but because the bus is going the other way: school buses go round in circles. The unlucky ones at the very beginning of the trip have to get up an hour or two earlier than the ones at the end of the trip.

The National Union of School Teachers may think that when the children arrive at school they are content, and that they ought to be allowed their hour of daylight in the afternoon for games. I accept that as a reasonable and excellent argument, but I hope it will not be forgotten that these children are being sent out into the cold and dark, some of them frightened many of them without breakfast—because nobody has found a law yet to persuade all mothers to give their children a hot breakfast before they go out. I ask your Lordships to consider whether this is a desirable thing. I personally very much doubt it.

These children are certainly on their way to school between the hours of eight and nine in the morning. Something else is happening between those hours and that is the morning rush-hour. The police are quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, in the debate on the Order, as saying that relatively there are fewer accidents in the morning than in the rush hours at night because people are more relaxed and are not rushing so much. I should like for a moment to draw attention to the hour in the morning between eight and nine o'clock. This is a daylight hour. This Bill operates only in the winter. Let us take the two months of December and January. At present, according to my reckoning (which is not quite accurate, but it is accurate enough for this purpose, and very nearly right), 94 per cent. of the traffic in that hour runs by daylight. The Bill will cause 97 per cent of that traffic—virtually the whole lot—to run before dawn. I nearly said "in the dark", and it would have made no difference if I had, I submit, because I know very well, from considerable experience of my own in driving in these hours of the dawn, that the hour of twilight which spreads over the time of sunrise is the most difficult part, the most dangerous part, in my opinion, of the whole of the day's motoring. In terms of danger, one can perfectly well draw a line at the moment of sunrise, and say that before that it is dark in danger terms, and after that in danger terms it is light. The whole of the rush hour traffic has been taken out of the daylight and put into the dark.

In the report, accurately given by the noble Lord, the police say that there are fewer accidents in the morning. I cannot believe that this applies to this particular hour. It may do. I am not in a position to say that it does not, but I do say that I do not believe it is intended, or that the noble Lord intended, to imply that. This dawn hour will carry in the dark, in the frost, in the snow and in the fog, the whole of the morning rush hour. I should like to know what research has been done on this point. I am sure the noble Lord will be able to tell me what reports he has from the Road Research Laboratory, for example; from the motoring organisations, and from the hospitals, I may say, and, above all, from the Minister of Transport.

I am inclined to think that these things have not been thought out. I think they have been approached—I stand open to correction—with the same rather wishful thinking attitude as the Title. This Bill has been presented to us quietly, with eminent reasonableness, by the noble Lord on behalf of the Government, with the expectation that we shall quietly pass it through. Your Lordships, of course, will quietly pass it through if you feel so disposed. For myself, I agree with my noble friends, Lord Craigmyle and Lord Ferrier, that it ought not to be passed through quietly, or indeed at all. A great deal more thought should be given to it, and a great deal more research carried out. I, for one, shall vote against the Bill.

6.33 p.m.

LORD CONESFORD

My Lords, I wish briefly to support the opposition to this Bill. I want to make about four points, and the first is one of regret that this Bill should have come on as the last business on a Thursday. I quite realise how this has happened: it was down for consideration on Tuesday, and it was displaced by more urgent matters. But the effect of that is that comparatively few Scotsmen are able to be here. If I may mention one, my noble friend Lord Saltoun expressed to me his regret that he could not be here, and also his utter contempt for the silliness of this Bill. I am sorry that he is not here to make his views clear.

I was most astonished by the noble Lord, Lord Rowley, who seemed to think that some of the arguments in favour of Summer Time support this measure. Of course they do not. I think that that would have occurred even to the noble Lord himself had this Bill, which is now very elegantly and well drafted, been drafted in the alternative way in which it might have been drafted, which would have been to adopt one of the old Summer Time Acts and then add a clause that "as from October 27, 1968, the winter shall be deemed to be the summer". I believe that, had it been drafted in that way, many noble Lords who think this Bill so sensible would have thought that perhaps it was a little more stupid than they had hitherto supposed. Of course, Mr. Willett's arguments—I thought there was a lot to be said for his reform—were put forward to save daylight in the summer, not to be cruel to Scottish children in the winter. It is a totally different purpose.

The reason why I ventured to interrupt the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, in his very reasonable and fair presentation, which he always adopts in presenting measures, was that after dealing with the teachers in England and Wales he did not deal with the views of the teachers in Scotland. He did not, except to say they were very different. I am not astonished. I believe that if we wished to convert almost all the mothers in Scotland to Scottish nationalism, this Bill would do a very great deal of good. But if that is not our aim, it seems to me to be one of the silliest Bills it has ever been my experience to see. I think it will adversely affect not only the comfort but the health of the children in Scotland. I do not believe this has been adequately considered at all. If there is a Division, for the reasons I have given I shall join with those who oppose the Bill.

There is only one other matter which I shall mention. Should the Bill receive a Second Reading there will be a number of Amendments to the Title to be considered during the Committee stage. One fairly clear and possible Amendment would be to leave out "Standard" and insert "Sub-standard". That would be one possible Amendment of this Bill to reveal its general nature. I support the speech of my noble friend who spoke immediately before me, because further attention should be given to this Bill. For myself, I find very convincing the arguments of my old friend Alan Herbert which he developed in The Times. He was supporting arguments that had been put forward by various scientific organisations at an earlier date. I believe that this measure has received altogether too little consideration. I do not believe that the serious objections have been weighed at all, and I think it should be opposed and rejected.

6.38 p.m.

VISCOUNT BARRINGTON

My Lords, I had not meant to say anything on this subject, but I am in a difficulty because I should like to ask about two questions, which the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, will be able to answer. My impression from his excellent introductory speech left me in doubt on one main point. That is whether this Bill is being introduced, whether or not it is scientifically advisable, because there are a large number of people in the country who want it, or for the opposite reason, that it may not be a popular Bill but there are very good scientific reasons for introducing it. I can quite see, on a subject I know as little about as this, that there is a case for any Government pressing a measure which may not be popular at first if there are overwhelming scientific and economic reasons for it; or for putting through something they are less enthusiastic about, so long as it is not actually harmful, if there is a wide pressure of opinion for it.

I have not yet been convinced by anything I have heard (perhaps this is because most of the speeches have been in opposition to the Bill) that the Bill provides an advantage from a scientific point of view. Before I "stick my neck out" here, I would refer to what I think almost every speaker, including the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, has mentioned before. There was a letter from four, I imagine, eminent and unbiased scientists in The Times the other day. They were, I think, the President of the Royal Astronomical Society, the President of the Navigation Society, the President of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and the President of the Royal Geographical Society. There were certainly four. My recollection is that they said it was ambiguous, misleading, likely to lead to confusion and misunderstanding, and inconsistent with the system of standard time zones. Experts are often wrong but I should like to hear the arguments against that.

The only thing that I can understand in the reference to "standard zones" is that the meridian of Greenwich was fixed not, as some people believe, by English gunboat politics but by invitation from the United States of America that all countries should get away from the practice of having different times and should try to get a reasonable system. Greenwich was not suggested purely for the English, and I think there is probably no reason in nature or in geography. It may have been as a result of the history of the times, and I think I am right in saying that only one out of something like 30 countries voted against it. That one was San Domingo. I believe in addition there were two abstentions, one of which was France and the other Brazil, but at that time it may have been out of loyalty in opposing Britain or in supporting San Domingo.

The reason for choosing the zones, if I understand it rightly, was to get what is called "integration". That is a fashionable word now, and it was in order to get into a situation in which the times round the globe would not get one into the realms of 5.326 recurring but a whole number of hours—either one, two or three or four hours in front or behind a certain time. As I understand the situation, if we go into this particular system we shall be getting away from that. If I may take the only analogy which I can think of at the moment, one knows that an orange has segments, and instead of keeping all the segments the same size we already have one which has absorbed about two segments, and we are now coming in on the grounds that it is to our economic advantage.

However, it has not been made clear to me at the moment that it is to our economic advantage, because perhaps more than any of your Lordships I am in favour of the European Common Market. But we are not yet members of it, and it seems to me that any argument—and there may be an argument for saying that this would be an advantage in the European Common Market—may cut the other way, as I believe the noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, pointed out, if one is going West or even having business dealings.

This is a technical and difficult subject which I do not know anything about, but it seems to me there are two possible reasonable systems of time. One was suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Craigmyle, which is what we had for years—have one global time with 24 hours (or another number) and ignore the fact that somebody is having breakfast in one place at the same time as another person is having lunch in another place. In fact that is what happens with the seasons. Christmas in one hemisphere is very cold, while in the other hemisphere it is hot. People have to adjust themselves to that. But I should have thought that if this is based on technological grounds we are falling between two stools, and it is wrong to make a substantial change like this which will affect a lot of people's lives, before we have actually entered the European Economic Community and, as has been acknowledged by the noble Lord, Lord Rowley, on the grounds that it will not be a permanent change and we may presumably have atomic space time to-morrow. In fact I believe that in Whitaker's almanack at the moment there is a mention of atomic time.

My feeling is that it is the wrong moment to take this step, unless we are absolutely 100 per cent. certain, and that is what I should like to be before I vote in favour of this Bill. I should like to be 100 per cent. certain that there are real technological and economic advantages. So far as the social side of the problem is concerned, if, as has been said, the teachers—in England, though not apparently in Scotland—are entirely in favour of it, I doubt whether the parents are equally in favour of it, because the very few parents to whom I have mentioned this were against it; and I have seen a number of letters from parents who oppose it.

I believe it would be a great pity if this Bill went through quickly, on the assumption that all the scientists and the parents and the teachers were agreed, and it was found afterwards that this was not the fact. I should have thought that, in the present state of legislation, this was not such a vital matter that this Bill needed to be pushed through with such a small attendance, as was pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, without more consideration than can be given to it by those of your Lordships who are here to-night.

I have spoken for too long and have said more than I intended to. I will only add that if the question of the Title comes up—as I think it will do—in my opinion it is a pity to use the expression "Greenwich mean time" to mean, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Cones-ford, would put it, something which is deemed to be the time that people think it is at Greenwich, but is not. It would be more accurate to call it Potsdam Time, or whatever the name of place may be where it would be that time. If one wants to keep the name "Greenwich" I think "Greenwich memorial time" would be a more honest name. Another thing I should like to emphasise for the last time is that a daylight—saving Bill which actually loses daylight—and when I say that I mean at the end of the day, which matters to a great many people—is an anomaly that I do not believe we ought to pass without a good deal more consideration.

6.49 p.m.

LORD STONHAM

My Lords whether we call it "Standard", "Greenwich" or any other name, I am quite sure that on one thing your Lordships will agree with me, and that is that I should take up as little as possible of your Lordships' time in replying. The noble Viscount, Lord Barrington, asked me whether we were introducing this measure because it was popular but scientifically undesirable. The best information I can obtain is that this is a measure which is extremely popular in the country. By that I mean in the United Kingdom as a whole, though I think it would be quite impossible to say of any measure that every parent was in agreement with it.

I think the opposing views which have been expressed to this measure can be divided roughly into three. One view is that expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Craigmyle, who said that he has always regarded Summer Time as "nonsense". We have had this "nonsense" now for 51 years, and, while he may be right to continue his objection in this way, it seems to me not to be a strong enough reason for opposing the Second Reading of this Bill. The noble Lord asked how one can save daylight by falsifying the clock. The answer is that most people get up by the clock, and if we so contrive things that they sleep less when the sun is shining, they use more daylight. This has been the whole justification for Summer Time, and I suppose it is the whole justification for this Bill.

The noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery voiced objections to the name. I said in moving the Second Reading that of course we could discuss this point in Committee. It is quite obvious that we shall have a number of Amendments to consider in Committee, as the noble Lord, Lord Conesford suggested. But I submit that difference of opinion about the name is not a reason for opposing the Second Reading of this Bill, which is a principle.

The third range of objections came from the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier and others, who voiced in particular the position of Scotland. It is of the essence, of course, that in different parts of the country there will be different effects. The one thing the noble Lords, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, Lord Ferrier and Lord Cork and Orrery, all missed out was a reference to the time of sunset. They referred to the time of the sunrise, but they did not—and, indeed, neither did The Times—refer to the time of sunset. The important thing surely is that though people will be getting up in the dark for a longer period of the year, when it may well be cold and unpleasant as well as dark, the hours of daylight, the hours between sunrise and sunset, will not be reduced anywhere in the United Kingdom by this measure.

I naturally did not come here without some knowledge of the respective times. For example, in midwinter, at the worst, London would get almost eight hours of daylight; Cardiff, in the West, would get almost eight hours; Newcastle, seven and a quarter; Manchester, seven and a half; Belfast, seven and a quarter; Glasgow, seven; Inverness, the worst of all, six and a half hours. This is what they get now. This is what they will get in the future, if this measure becomes law in its present form. There is only a quarter of an hour difference in the daylight between London and Rome, Cardiff and Rome. Rome would get only three-quarters of an hour more than Manchester.

LORD FERRIER

My Lords, of course I did not mention sunset, because one cannot alter the length of the day. The point is that in the North the sunset varies very much less than the sunrise at these particular critical times. The length of the day remains the same. It is the very late hour of sunrise that is the problem.

LORD STONHAM

My Lords, I think I have made the point that we are not out to reduce the hours of daylight, and this measure would not do it.

With regard to the position in Scotland, I mentioned that we have consulted 88 different organisations, of which 22 were in Scotland. I was asked by the noble Lord what the womenfolk in Scotland think about it. The Scottish Townswomen's Guild reported a two-thirds majority in favour of the change. The Scottish section of the Women's Royal Voluntary Service were also in favour, but not by quite such a large majority. They are representative of women all over Scotland. The District Councils Association of Scotland are in favour. The County Councils Association were not, by two to one against in counties; but of the counties in favour, there were Aberdeen, Ayr, Banff, Clackmannan, Dumfries, Fife, Moray and Orkney, the most northerly of all.

I should hope that the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, and other noble Lords will not take what I regard as the most unusual step, a step not in accord with our usual methods in this House, of opposing the Second Reading of a Bill of this kind. If they have, as they must have, differences of opinion, no doubt on important matters, these can be dealt with in Committee. I hope that they will now agree to give this Bill a Second Reading and put down Amendments. Then let us discuss

Resolved in the affirmative; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

them thoroughly and give these matters full consideration.

With regard to the very important point put to me by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, for which I was very grateful, he will know that if we had had any doubts about this legislation, or any thoughts that in a year or two we should have to come back to the House and say "Let us cancel it", we should not be bringing legislation forward now. But most certainly I can give him the assurance he asks for: that when this Bill becomes law, and as we begin to have experience of it, we will most certainly take the necessary steps to record reactions and learn from experience. I hope that, with that assurance, your Lordships will give the Bill a Second Reading.

On Question, Whether the Bill shall be now read 2a?

Their Lordships divided: Contents, 49; Not-Contents, 13.

CONTENTS
Addison, V. Hunt, L. Phillips, Bs. [Teller.]
Amherst of Hackney, L. Hurcomb, L. Piercy, L.
Ampthill, L. Ironside, L. Raglan, L.
Beswick, L. Kennet, L. Ritchie-Calder, L.
Bowles, L. Kirkwood, L. Rowley, L.
Brooke of Cumnor, L. Leatherland, L. St. Davids, V.
Brooke of Ystradfellte, Bs. Lindgren, L. Shackleton, L.
Campbell of Eskan, L. Listowel, E. Shepherd, L.
Carron, L. Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, Bs. Sorensen, L. [Teller.]
Collison, L. Longford, E. (L. Privy Seal.) Stonham, L.
Delacourt-Smith, L. Merrivale, L. Strang, L.
Denham, L. Milner of Leeds, L. Summerskill, Bs.
Evans of Hungershall, L. Mowbray and Stourton, L. Swansea, L.
Gardiner, L. (L. Chancellor.) Moyle, L. Williamson, L.
Garnsworthy, L. Oakshott, L. Windlesham, L.
Hill of Wivenhoe, L. Peddie, L. Worcester, L. Bp.
Hughes, L.
NOT-CONTENTS
Audley, Bs. Ferrier, L. [Teller.] Margadale, L.
Barrington, V. Gray, L. Mountevans, L.
Conesford, L. Horsbrugh, Bs. Noel-Buxton, L.
Cork and Orrery, E. [Teller.] Iddesleigh, E. Strange of Knokin, Bs.
Craigmyle, L.