Lighter Evenings (Experiment) Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 1A:"Page 2, line 4, leave out ““2006”” and insert ““2008””" The noble Lord said: As I argued on Second Reading, if there are enough people in this country who want to sacrifice lighter mornings in favour of lighter evenings, in most cases there is nothing to stop them collectively in conjunction with employers, if they are employed—if they are self-employed they do not need to consult anyone—deciding to rearrange their working day so as to start work earlier and finish work earlier so as to give them more hours of daylight after they finish work, as most people on the Continent of Europe already do and have done for many years. There is no cultural imperative that decrees that the British should start and finish work up to an hour later than most other nationalities; it is simply a convention and conventions can be modified. It is surely far better to try to alter the hours of work on a voluntary basis for those who want to do so for two years or so, rather than switching Wolverhampton and Weston-super-Mare into the same time zone as Warsaw, where the sun rises approximately one and a half hours earlier than it does here. This amendment would give more time for people to experiment, for those who want to—it would of course have to be done collectively—with modest alterations to their working hours. If successful, the Bill’s provisions would never need to be brought into force and a suitable amendment would have to be introduced on Report to provide for that possibility. I beg to move.