The Energy Saving (Daylight) Bill was introduced in the House of Commons on 13th December 2006.

NOTES

  • The Energy Saving (Daylight) Bill is a private member's Bill introduced by Tim Yeo MP.
  • Second Reading of the Bill was on 26th January 2007, reported in Hansard HC 26 Jan 2007, Col 1674.
  • The Bill was subsequently DROPPED (2nd February 2007)

    If enacted this Bill would have amended the Summer Time Act 1972 to advance time by one hour throughout the year for an experimental three year period. The effect would have been to create lighter evenings and darker mornings. Winter would be one hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time and summer two hours ahead, meaning that time in England would be brought into line with the rest of Western Europe.

    The Bill had no direct implications for employment law as such but is noted here as clearly it would have had an effect on workers, as well as on school children, road users and others. Indeed during the 26th January 2007 debate on 2nd reading , Tim Yeo, the proposer of the Bill, was asked if he would "like to speculate on the chances of an employee saying at an industrial tribunal, 'I shouldn’t have been sacked. It was just that I got fed up with going to work in the dark since the Bill was brought in'?" Mr Yeo's reply was that "Employees and employers are a great deal more flexible today than they were 40 years ago when a similar experiment was attempted. If there were employers whose working hours involved employees coming to work at times of the day they did not like, I think that people would make a common-sense adjustment to the circumstances".

    A similar Lighter Evenings (Experiment) Bill was introduced in the House of Lords on 30th November 2005 but failed to become law.

    Although the Bill related only to England it made provision for a similar change to be made for other parts of the UK.

    Progress of the Bill, regularly updated can be monitored on the Parliament website.

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    updated February2007