MPs back off fight with Holyrood over plan to move clocks forward

ENGLISH MPs appeared to back away from a confrontation with the Scottish Government yesterday when they side-stepped a vote over proposals to move clocks forward an hour.

A debate on the private member’s bill that could have led to Scotland having a different time zone to the rest of the UK was ended without a vote when MPs ran out of time.

During the Commons debate right-wing Conservative English MPs, led by Jacob Rees-Mogg and Christopher Chope, raised fears that backing the time change would play into the hands of the SNP and hasten the break-up of the UK.

The Scottish Government had said it would oppose the move. It claimed the darker mornings would be bad for Scotland, particularly for farmers.

The private member’s bill, which was supported by Labour and the government front-bench, would have launched a study into scrapping Greenwich Mean Time.

It was scuppered yesterday by an unlikely alliance made up of Tory back-benchers and SNP MPs.

Mr Rees Mogg and Mr Chope argued that, with an independence referendum now certain, the last thing the pro-UK side needed was for Scotland to be allowed to have its own time zone, something which the SNP said it would consider in the consultation had the bill succeeded.

Instead, those opposed to the bill put down more than 100 ammendments, preventing it getting as far as a vote in the time allocated.

The bill was being taken through parliament by Tory MP Rebecca Harris, whose Castle Point constituency is in the south-west of England, which claims to lose millions of pounds in tourism revenue because of the current time set-up.

Mr Chope said “the Achilles’ heel” of the legislation was that “it enables the United Kingdom government to change the time zone in Scotland without the consent of the Scottish Parliament”. He said: “We know that the Scottish Parliament and that MPs representing Scottish constituencies in this House do not support a change that would make winter mornings in Scotland even colder and darker than they are already.”

Mr Chope added: “If this parliament changes the time zone for the United Kingdom against the wishes of the people of Scotland, that is going to give extra ammunition to those people in Scotland who are campaigning for an independent Scotland.”

The SNP’s Angus MacNeil said: “If there is any perception of high-handedness from Westminster, we will probably see last week’s figure of 1,000 new members for the SNP being dwarfed.”

In a sign of wider discontent with the bill, Mr Rees-Mogg tabled amendments to give Somerset the power to set its own time zone.

Last night, Edinburgh South Labour MP Ian Murray, who was speaking for the Labour front-bench in the debate, said: “What we have seen is the SNP joining the most right-wing Tories to stop a sensible bill which, had it gone ahead, would have allowed the whole issue to be killed off once and for all.”