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Energy Efficiency

I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman's final point, as I spent much of last year doing a study on this very subject. The point he raises about the far north of England and Scotland is relevant, however, and I will come to it in due course, when, no doubt, he will want to jump up and have another go. According to Cambridge university, this change to our clocks would mean that electricity prices for the whole of the United Kingdom would reduce by about 5%. Moreover, the UK's carbon footprint would be reduced by about 500,000 tonnes of CO2. People should wake up and see that that figure is relevant. That was not even a consideration in the 1970s, when, as hon. Members might recall, there was a three-year pilot project to test this idea; some people enjoyed it, and others did not. It turned out that the voices who spoke most strongly against it were those of the farmers—and rightly, because the business that they operated meant that they had to make best use of the daylight, and it conflicted with their routine. However, the National Farmers Union, and indeed NFU Scotland, no longer object to the idea. When NFU Scotland is asked if it is the first thing it wants, of course it says no—it is not on its agenda at all—but it has withdrawn its objections to it, and that makes sense, because farming is now a 24-hour industry. The experiment was very positive, and it saw a reduction in fatalities and injuries across the UK. You might be interested to learn, Mr Deputy Speaker, however, that the reason why the experiment was flipped back was that farmers told all the Conservative MPs who were in power at the time that they would be denied the poster sites that are so important during a general election were it to continue. That was why they said, "Okay, fine, we will get rid of this". However, reading the Hansard makes it clear that the argument for dropping it was weak. I have mentioned the reduction in the UK's carbon footprint, but there would also be an important boost to British tourism, an industry that Parliament almost neglects. It is our fifth-biggest industry and brings in more than £90 billion a year. According to the Tourism Alliance, daylight saving would boost the industry by about £2 billion, which is worth considering. We are the sixth most visited place in the world, and if we can find other means to encourage people to come here and take advantage of British tourist attractions, particularly those outdoors, it is worth looking into. Safer roads, which I believe have been mentioned, are another aspect of daylight saving. As I have said, when the experiment last took place there was a reduction in deaths. I agree that more deaths took place in the morning, but the net change was a decrease. That was because in the morning, people tend to make a journey from A to B, with A being their home and B being somewhere they know, such as work or school. In the evenings they tend to make a journey from A to C, with C being somewhere they have not been before. That means that they are not so familiar with the roads, which leads to accidents. Shifting the time so that it is lighter in the evenings rather than the mornings reduces the number of accidents that take place.