Written Evidence – Dr David Prerau (SCT0008)

Summer-time or daylight saving time (DST) is essentially a British idea. The United Kingdom has utilized summer-time continually from the first year of its introduction in 1916 until the present day, except for a brief trial of year-round summer-time called British Standard Time. Other countries that have utilized summer-time at all have generally had periods of years when summer-time was utilized and other periods of years when it was not. Thus, there were several years when the UK followed summer-time while nearby countries did not.

Though a New Zealander first suggested moving the clocks ahead in summer, nothing came of it. The summer-time or daylight saving time that is in use in the world today is based upon the independently-conceived idea and years of effort of British builder William Willett in the early 1900s. Word of Willett's concept spread throughout Europe, and summer-time was initially adopted during the World War I. It was adopted first by Germany in 1916, admitting that they were taking a British idea, but then quickly followed by the UK (in 1916) and by most combatants in the War on both sides,

After the end of the First World War, the UK continued summer-time each year while most other countries, considering summer-time a wartime measure, discontinued its use.

When the Second World War began, all combatants on both sides quickly adopted summer-time. The UK extended summer-time to the entire year and then added double summer-time (two hours advanced) in the summers. At the end of the war, many countries completely abandoned summer-time, but the UK retained it and reverted to its prewar policy of traditional summer-time in summer and standard time in the winter.

The UK experimented with year-round summer-time, called British Standard Time (BST), from 1968 through 1971. Opposition from northerners, farmers, and others led to the end of BST.

In 1996, the European Union, including the UK, adopted a summer-time period from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October.

The current time system utilized in the UK is excellent and has many advantages. It provides a fine compromise between the goals of providing the many benefits of summer-time for most of the year and yet avoiding the problems of winter summer-time during the year's darkest, coldest months. Most people enjoy an extra hour of evening daylight during the parts of year with large amounts of daylight each day.

There have been many times throughout history when the time system in the UK differed from that of other areas of Europe. While there are clearly certain advantages of coordination, it is important to consider those in light of the many disadvantages of an all-standard-time year or an all-summer-time year.

The benefits of the current summer summer-time last seven months (about 210 days) and the benefits of winter standard time last five months (about 150 days). The clock change itself is bothersome, but, in comparison, its effects last only a day or a few days. The clock change is similar to traveling one time zone to the east (Chicago to New York, London to Paris, Rome to Athens, Beijing to Tokyo), which multitudes do worldwide every day of the year.

The seven months of summer-time provide several benefits, including reducing automobile accidents, energy usage, and outdoor crime, and increasing public health by getting people outdoors more. These would be lost with permanent standard time. However, extending summer-time into winter would bring many negative factors. There would be very dark mornings throughout the UK--sunrises in London after 9 a.m., Glasgow and Belfast about 9:45 a.m., and Northern Scotland 10 a.m. or later. Most people would go to work and begin work in the pitch dark, and most children would go to school in the pitch dark. In addition, winter mornings would be colder for most people, since most would be up and about before sunrise, during what is often the coldest part of the day.

While coordination of time systems with neighbors is preferable, there are many cases throughout the world of nearby entities with different time systems (in addition, of course, to neighbors having different times due to being in different time zones). Non-alignment seems to be more of a problem for smaller entities, where outsiders may not know or remember about the time differences. In the case of a major nation such as the UK, this should be much less of a problem.

However, even smaller entities, such as an individual U.S. state or Canadian province, have had time policies differing from their neighbors for many years. For example, in the United States, the state of Arizona for over fifty years, since 1968, has been on year-round standard time while all of its neighboring states have followed daylight saving time. A similar situation is in Canada, where the province of Saskatchewan has followed year-round standard time for many years while its neighboring provinces utilized DST. In Australia, some provinces utilize DST, and some, in the same time zone, do not. This, combined with Australia's three time zones, yields a yearly summer situation where there are five different times in Australia for all the summer months, while only three different times (following the time zones) in winter. Also, for several years, southern states in Brazil utilized DST while its northern states did not.

On a smaller scale, in the U.S. state of Arizona during each summer the following occurs: The semi-autonomous Hopi Native American Reservation follows standard time. The Hopi Reservation is surrounded by the Navajo Reservation, which follows DST. The Navajo are surrounded in Arizona by the rest of the the state, which uses standard time, And the state of Arizona is surrounded in the US by all its neighboring states, which follow DST.

In addition, for many years, the UK and countries in Western Europe, all following summer-time, changed their clocks on different dates, yielding some weeks of time difference every year between countries. That situation is true today for the U.S. vs. the UK.

Since there are significant issues with both permanent summer-time and permanent standard time, strong consideration should be given to the option of keeping the very reasonable, beneficial, and time-proven compromise time system that has been in use in the UK for many years and is in use today.

28 August 2019