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Energy Bill

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on his excellent maiden speech. I share with him a declared interest: I have to go to Germany on Thursday and I should like to go there and back in a day but it will take two days. I declare another interest in that for 45 years I have been a hill and upland farmer in south-west Scotland. I want to mention an aspect of this matter referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Billingham—that is, the debate on 2 December 1970 in the other place that created the status quo that we have today. I am disappointed that the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, is not in his seat because I think that he is the only person in this House who attended that debate. I shall refer to him later. In the debate, the Home Secretary, Mr Maudling, said: "““Either we pass this Motion and, if it is … passed … British Standard Time will be made permanent or, if it is [not], there will be a reversion to Greenwich Mean Time on 31st October, 1971””.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/12/70; col. 1331.]" This was the critical debate which gave us what I believe to be the wrong status quo. It was based in part on wrong or out-of-date information, as was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Billingham. Apparently, in that debate statistics did not count. The noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, always refers to daylight saving as ““Berlin time”” in reference to the war, and later I shall quote his intervention in that debate. However, the main argument put forward came from the many Scottish farming elements—in particular, from the late Duke of Buccleuch, or the Earl of Dalkeith, as he was then. He argued that the long dark mornings would increase the suicide rate in Scotland. However, that is statistically incorrect, as the suicide rate went down during the experimental period. He reminded Members that, "““light has definite effects on the animal, whether human or otherwise. Let me quote what happens to sheep. It may not be generally known that the ewe reaches the stage when she desires the tup due to the effect of the number of hours of daylight and the changing length of day, which causes this process to take place. This is a photoelectrical process””." It is nothing of the sort. A photoelectric or photoemissive effect is when light strikes a surface either large or small. I understand that one of the twin foundations of the quantum theory was subject to Einstein’s photoelectric law of 1905, which involved Planck’s constant and other factors way beyond my own scientific knowledge. It has nothing whatever to do with the amount of light falling on sheep or humans during the act of procreation. The noble Lord, Lord Tebbit— Mr Tebbit, as he was then—leapt to his feet and interrupted the Earl of Dalkeith because he was worried that human beings were similarly affected. He asked: "““What do Eskimos do in the winter?””." That was the level at which the debate was conducted. The Earl of Dalkeith was not deterred at all and carried straight on. He said: "““I went through all the statistics that I could find last night””." The fact is that no one knew what the Earl of Dalkeith was talking about with regard to photoelectrics. I do not want to be crude but I think that it is a question of whether the light is on or the light is off. I feel that that is the problem. No one dares say it but Mr Tebbit, as he was then, did. The Earl of Dalkeith went on: "““One thing which struck me was that the birth rate has been failing in the last two years””.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/12/70; cols. 1403-04.]," referring to the experiment taking place in Scotland. I take that to mean that the Earl of Dalkeith was a ““lights off”” man because he voted against a change. The debate went on to cover the building and construction industry and postmen. The unions for these workers have entered the debate, saying that postal workers get up in the dark early in the morning, but today how many letters are delivered before sunrise? What age is the postal workers’ union—and people such as Peter Hain MP, who represents it—living in? It is another age. This debate took place in another century. We are now in 2008 and a lot of things have moved on. The noble Lord, Lord Howie of Troon, is not here either. He has talked about apprentices in the construction industry being frozen to ladders. Under health and safety legislation, ladders are not allowed to be used even by window cleaners, yet these arguments are still used today on the issue of daylight saving. As we all know, building work takes place under enclosed plastic sheeting and in controlled conditions. So, where are the facts? Another depressing fact is that the issue is not on the agenda of the Energy Saving Trust. I asked about that, and the trust said that it was not allowed to include it. Why is it not on the agenda of the climate change committee? We are trying to save energy and lives on the roads, so daylight saving should be put on the agenda and debated; and it should be proven whether it will assist the nation in the severe crisis that we are facing today. None of that is happening. The Minister will make some noise about the amendment, but it will sink without trace and be lost in the great confines of the filing systems of his department. I forgot to congratulate him on his appointment. I hope that he will last longer than some. The shelf life of these Ministers is not long—there have been nine in the past nine years. I hope that we will have the benefit of his wisdom and direction and that he will consider my noble friend’s amendment seriously and do something about it. Nothing has happened for 45 years.