Lighter Evenings (Experiment) Bill [HL]

My Lords, the score is about to change to 5:1. I must congratulate my noble friend Lord Tanlaw on the hard work that he has obviously put into preparing this Bill and drumming up support for it, on his presentation today and, above all, on his mastery of the art of spinning. What could be more seductive than the notion of lighter evenings, with nary a hint of any corresponding downside? That is so much more appealing than, for example, a Central European Time Bill, as even absolute dunces at geography are dimly aware that the United Kingdom is not remotely located in central Europe. I must also congratulate my noble friend on his pre-emptive strike at the prospective objections from what we term, albeit not entirely accurately, the Celtic fringe. The noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, also mentioned that. Of course, there is no valid reason why there should not be different time zones within a single country. Many countries already have between two and 11 time zones, and not just those running from east to west. The distance from Sydney to Brisbane is almost exactly the same as that from London to Inverness. Queensland, being nearer the equator, never switches to summer time; in contrast, New South Wales does, so, for about half the year, those travelling from Sydney to Brisbane or vice versa have to alter their watches. For the remaining six months, they do not. The Australians take that in their stride, as they are quite used to altering watches when travelling from east to west or vice versa. What are the main reasons for sticking with the status quo? First, and most obviously, we are not remotely in central Europe. It is objectively ridiculous for London—still more so Cardiff or Belfast—to be in the same time zone as Warsaw. Today, for example, 24 March, the sun will have risen in Warsaw one hour and 49 minutes before it rose in Belfast and one hour and 23 minutes before it rose in London. Yes, Spain is on Central European Time. I am very fond of that country, but Spain is an odd place in one respect. It is unique in Europe—perhaps in the world—in that people have their lunch and dinner two or three hours later than anywhere else. Indeed, Eastern European Time would suit them even better. I could not speak against my noble friend Lord Montgomery’s Motion because I was on my way to Bombay at the time, but we were told how terribly tough life is for London businessmen travelling to Paris. They face no greater hardship than their counterparts who have to travel from Lisbon to Madrid, from Stockholm to Helsinki, from Rome to Athens, from Chicago to Detroit, from LA to Phoenix or Denver or from Adelaide to Melbourne—although I think that the time difference there is only half an hour. None of them seems to make a fuss. We are then told, as several noble Lords have told us today, that children are put at risk by dark evenings in winter months—dark mornings apparently present no problem. However, Birmingham and Berlin are on the same latitude and are 15 degrees of longitude apart, so the sun rises and sets at a virtually identical hour, local time, in each city. Yet the methodical, pragmatic and scientifically rigorous Germans have concluded that there is no need to switch to Eastern European Time to protect their children. Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Tanlaw, among others, asserts that we ought to be in the same time zone as all other EU countries. That is literally impossible. At present, 12 per cent of EU countries are on Western European Time; 24 per cent on Eastern European Time; and only 64 per cent on Central European Time. The latter proportion will fall to below 60 per cent if and when Romania and Bulgaria join the EU. The noble Lord argues that we need an experiment. As is well known, an experiment took place between 1968 and 1971 and was finally rejected. It is claimed that life has changed since then but, much more recently, the Portuguese dabbled with switching to Central European Time but swiftly rejected it after a trial period—not for the reasons that the noble Lord suggested.