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Daylight Saving Bill

I should have anticipated my hon. Friend's intervention; I am sure that the Government would wish to receive representations and would be very sympathetic towards representations along those lines. Let us hope that that is so. As somebody who spent quite a lot of my late childhood in Cornwall, I think it would also be useful to have a representative from England who came from the far south-west, as the circumstances there are rather different from those in what might be described as the soft south-east. I do not know what, if anything, the Government have against the amendment. I know that in Committee it was proposed that the independent panel should have three experts from each of the four nations comprising the United Kingdom. This amendment is modest in comparison, but it introduces a worthwhile safeguard to ensure that any report is fully informed by the perspective of all parts of the United Kingdom. Amendment 95, tabled by my hon. Friends the Members for Shipley, for Hendon (Mr Offord) and for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) and others, addresses the same issue as amendment 58 in slightly different language. The amendment talks about the impact and effect on the practices of the mainstream faith groups in the United Kingdom. It is a very sensible amendment although, as with amendment 58, if my amendment 59 were agreed, it would be redundant. Amendment 5, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset and supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley, me and my hon. Friends the Members for Wellingborough and for Gainsborough, would leave out clause 3(2). Clause 3(1) requires the Secretary of State to publish the report of the independent oversight group within one year of Royal Assent, but subsection (2) gives the group a possible additional six months. Why? Why do they need an additional six months? If amendment 59 were accepted, the group would have less work to do but, in any event, surely one year is long enough for its work. If the group's members know that they have a chance of extending their work by another six months, they might be tempted to do so, but they should get down to the work they are being asked to do. In this country, we have a tendency to delay and delay and to think that that is a solution to our problems. As I said earlier, last weekend I was in Kazakhstan, where they have built a new city of 800,000 people in less than 15 years. If they can do that in 15 years, why will it take more than a year for this group to consider such a modest issue? We tolerate delay to far too great an extent and if we want to get on with this, we should get on with it—I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point, who is promoting the Bill, would agree—for better or for worse. We should not, however, use the delaying tactic. That brings me to amendment 25. I am rushing through these amendments, but I think it is important to address them. Sometimes, the people who are impatient to take the debate forward try to move a closure motion, which means that Members with amendments in the lead group do not have a chance to speak about them before there is an attempt to curtail such debate by using the procedures of the House. What I am doing by going through these amendments seriatim is giving those who tabled them the opportunity to expand on them if they so wish. In any event, I am ensuring that the full nature and extent of the amendments is officially on the record so that if the Bill goes to the other place for debate, those who pick up these issues there will be able to look at the report of today's proceedings and decide which, if any, of the amendments find favour with them. Amendment 25 would leave out ““18”” and insert ““24”” in line 14 of subsection 2(b). This is the only one of the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley with which I do not agree. I think it contradicts absolutely amendment 5, which he has also signed.