Today, I backed 'Churchill Time' : a Parliamentary bill to objectively look at the benefits of moving the clocks forward by one hour, a move which he says could save lives and create jobs in Harlow
The bill called on the Government to conduct a comprehensive review of the costs and benefits of putting clocks forward an hour throughout the UK, resulting in lighter evenings every day of the year.
I am in favour of what I call 'Churchill time'. During the second world war, Churchill moved the clocks forward by an hour to maximise production at munitions factories, and to ensure people were able to get home safely before the blackout in winter.
This emergency measure was removed after the war but it worked brilliantly at the time. Lighter evenings would be good for Harlow, and good for Britain.
The arguments in favour of clock change are compelling. This one simple low-cost policy could bring wide ranging benefits to the whole of the UK including saving lives on our roads, creating much needed jobs in the tourism sector and reducing the fear of crime on dark evenings.
Supporters argue that lighter evenings would save lives on the roads by making more of the busiest evening rush hours occur in daylight, create jobs by boosting the tourism sector, and make many people especially older people feel safer going out in the evenings for longer.
Sadly, even this modest Bill - which just called for a pilot study in certain areas - was stopped by a small handful of Parliamentarians, who did everything they could to filibuster the legislation as it was being discussed. As a result the proposals ran out of Parliamentary time.
For more about the idea visit www.lighterlater.org
This is about so much more than just Harlow Rob - it's one thing saying that the lighter evenings would "save lives" - but what about the areas of the country where there would be no true daylight until 10am or later (specifically the Northern and Western Isles of Scotland). As for the "emotional line" re making older people feel safer going out in the evenings - surely better by far to re-educate them into understanding that actually, they have very little reason for these concerns, whilst also targetting the social issues that give them these concerns in the first place? Of course, all this would be harder than simply taking the "quick option" of putting the UK onto "false time" throughout the year.
ReplyDelete"Greenwich Mean time" is part of the UK's heritage - we as voters should be able to rely on our MP's to uphold our heritage, not trample all over it.