1. If you have not already, sign up to the campaign right here and join our Facebook group.
2. If you’re a new recruit or have been with us since the start now is the time to tell friends, family and workmates of the benefits of changing our clocks. Send them here so they can sign up too.
3. Write a letter to you MP asking them to support Rebecca Harris’ private member’s bill supporting Lighter Later which will be debated in parliament at the end of the year.

“We certainly will look at it. I’ve followed this debate for many years in the 1990s. I think the argument will be won when people across the country feel comfortable with the change. It’s always been about the problems of getting schools and children in the north of England and in Scotland. And, you know, we are a United Kingdom. I want us to have a united time zone. It’s up to those who want to make the change to make the argument to try to convince people right across the country that it’s a good thing. People who like taking part in sporting activity and would like longer days are already quite easy to sway. That’s the key to winning this argument.”

It’s happening.

After months of campaigning and lobbying MPs, we can finally confirm that there will be a bill in Parliament backing Lighter Later!

Castle Point MP Rebecca Harris’ bill would force the government to implement the time change if a full review of the evidence confirms the benefits.

All being well, MPs will debate the plan in early December. This is a huge step forward.

This is an idea whose time has come. 10:10′s Lighter Later campaign has proved that there is mass public support for this change.

- Rebecca Harris MP

Similar bills have tried and failed before, but this time there’s one really important difference. You.

Past attempts have been all-too-easily ignored but now, for the first time ever, we have the kind of public support that might just tip the balance.

We’ll be in touch very soon with some new ways to pile on the pressure. Before then, can you take five minutes to help get more people involved? Here’s how:

1. Join our rapid-reaction Facebook group and invite friends

2. Use the tell a friend tool on our website to send them an email

3. Spread the word on Twitter using hashtag #1010

Happy recruiting!

10:10′s Lighter Later campaign held a day of high-profile activity on Monday, the summer solstice, including a specially organised conference for MPs, peers and policy makers in Portcullis House, Westminster.

The event, on the lightest evening of the year, saw energy academics, road safety campaigners, representatives from the tourism industry and experts on crime and other social research areas come together to press the case for a change to the UK’s clocks to GMT+2 in summer and GMT+1 in winter.

The rationale is simple: aligning the clocks to better suit the population’s waking activity produces a diverse range of benefits to society. The overarching theme of the evening was that, considering the current economic and environmental situation, these are benefits we cannot afford to ignore.

Keynote speaker for the evening was Dr. Elizabeth Garnsey of Cambridge University’s Centre For Technology Management, presenting for the first time her paper on the energy savings expected from Lighter Later’s proposed clock changes, published recently in the peer-reviewed journal Energy Policy (Hill et al., 2010).

Dr. Garnsey and her team have been studying electricity demand in the UK for the past five years with particular focus on the weeks before and after the clock changes. The results she presented are clear. Were the UK to switch to GMT+1 in the winter there would be a clear 6GWh saving per day in the winter months alone.

“Translating that into carbon [dioxide] tonnes, that would have been around half a million tonnes saved. Which of course is cumulative: since the 1971 trial 20m tonnes of carbon dioxide could have been saved,” she said.

Dr. Garnsey’s second point, that the most important effect of Lighter Later is on peak demand, was stronger still: “Lower peak demand results in lower price of electricity and lower pollution on GMT+1 in winter. We found that peaks in demand could have been reduced by up to 4%. The reason is that when overall electricity demand surges beyond a certain level, the sources used to cover the peaks are the most inefficient and polluting. We estimate between a 0.6% and 0.8% saving overall.”

She added: “Think interest rates, because electricity prices have a similar knock-on effect over the economy as a whole. So there would definitely be winter savings on GMT+1.”

Robert Gifford of the Parliamentary Advisory Committee on Transport Safety (PACTS) restated his organisation’s support with some strong accident and financial numbers. During the trial of 1968 to 1971 there were 2,500 fewer road deaths. That translates into a conservative figure of 74 to 98 road deaths per annum today. Valuing the cost to the economy of each death at £1.5m, he argued that this would represent a saving to the tax payer of over £100m per annum, money that the NHS, for example, desperately needs.

The case was similarly made for tourism by Colin Dawson of BALPPA, who claimed the boost to the UK inbound industry would be as much as £3bn. Add in the fact that five of the nation’s top ten participation sports are light dependent and the health and obesity benefits are clear.

The number of Scottish lives saved and injuries prevented would be 20% greater proportionally than in the rest of the UK. Once again disproportionately Scots appear to be the major beneficiaries of change.

There was also space on the panel for Dr. Mayer Hillman of the Policy Studies Institute. Dr. Hillman is currently researching the positive economic impact of Lighter Later on Scotland. At the conference he gave compelling reasons why the change would positively impact the personal security of two key societal groups: the elderly and the young.

At present there is not a great deal of organised support against Lighter Later’s proposal, however there are firmly held cultural beliefs in parts of the UK, and particularly in Scotland, that the change will be less positive for those north of the border. Most speakers touched on this and called these views simply misinformed. Dr. Garnsey had some upfront statistics:

“[During the '68-'71 trial] there was an actual 8.6% net reduction in Scottish road deaths but this was disbelieved because it was in the face of a strongly held conviction that the trial had been a mistake… In fact the Transport Reseach Lab showed at least a hundred fewer deaths.”

Tom Mullarkey of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), who have been campaigning for 60 years on the issue, argued that in fact, Scotland would stand to benefit more than the rest of the UK from the move.

“The number of lives saved and injuries prevented would be 20% greater proportionally than in the rest of the UK. I don’t think people in Scotland realise this. In terms of the GDP that depends on tourism, it’s 4% in England and Wales, but in Scotland it’s just over 10%. Once again disproportionately Scots appear to be the major beneficiaries of change.”

From the expert panel to the audience, there was a huge amount of consensus in the room. Vocal in their support were MPs and peers from all sides of the house. Zac Goldsmith MP, Peter Bottomley MP (the event’s sponsoring MP) and Baroness Billingham all made vocal contributions from the floor. Whilst some on the panel have been campaigning on the issue for four decades, the diverse coalition that continues to grow under the Lighter Later banner has gained real momentum over the past number of months and is increasingly looking like an idea whose time has at last come.

For more on the Lighter Later campaign, the organisations behind it and the benefits it would bring to the UK, go to LighterLater.org or join the conversation at Facebook.com/LighterLater.

References:

Today is the summer solstice – the longest day of the year. And for 10:10 it’s the day we take out Lighter Later campaign to the next level.

Since the move to British Summer Time in March, 10:10 has been working with both our Lighter Later partners and our amazing supporters to put together an incredible coalition calling for the clock change that would give us more light in the evening.

RoSPA, Road Safety GB, Tourism Alliance and BALPPA are among a group of organisations backing the plan (full details here). What’s more, over 15,000 people have signed the Lighter Later petition calling on the government to introduce a three-year trial of the proposal. This morning we handed it in to prime minister David Cameron at 10 Downing Street.

This evening we’re back in Westminster hosting a conference which will see leading academics, researchers and campaigners present new and updated research to MPs and policy makers. Foremost among these is Dr Elizabeth Garnsey of Cambridge University, who is presenting her newly published peer-reviewed paper on the impact of the Lighter Later proposal on energy usage. Ahead of the event Dr Garnsey had this to say:

“The carbon savings associated with this clock change are significant, equivalent to the carbon footprint of the production of 1,800 plastic bags for every home in Britain every year, or taking around 200,000 cars off the road.”

Today is also the day you can do your bit and help us achieve action on Lighter Later. You can sign up to the campaign here and spread the message to friends and family. After all, who else are you going to enjoy that extra evening sunshine with?

We’ll have updates through the day on our Facebook page and on the 10:10 Twitter feed so stay tuned…

Metro April 30th

We’ve had a massive boost today … a 1/3-page plug in today’s Metro thanks to our runaway success on Yahoo’s People’s Policies page. We beat hundreds of other policy suggestions to top Yahoo’s charts.

Yahoo are throwing their huge reach behind the ten best ‘Peoples Policies’ – the top five on the leaderboard, plus their own five favourites. So they’ll tell their 20million users all about Lighter Later. Now that would be a result! If you haven’t already, go vote!

http://thepeoplepolicies.co.uk/policies/change-clocks-to-get-more-sun/

Today we unleashed the awesome power of 10:10s mailing list. In short, the response has blown us away. In under 9 hours we’ve added a stonking 3,500 new supporters to the call for Lighter Evenings. Tuesday has also seen an incredible array of new organisations flying the flag from the RAC to Horticulture Weekly to the late night crowd over at the Dark Age of Camelot forum.

Meanwhile, we were also featured all over the front page of the Independent, bagged p.11 in The Guardian and scored big in the  The Evening Standard. Tuesday was also a day of local coverage from Coventry to Devon and Cornwall, to BBC Radio shows in Manchester, Sheffield, Wales and Scotland, all topped off by a piece on Radio 4′s iconic PM. I’m loosing track! Funny spot of the day goes to Lighter Later’s first parody courtesy of Low Carbonara: New 10:10 campaign launches but fails to spot major flaw.

Meanwhile, quote of the day goes to Thomas Cowley on our facebook wall who says: “As someone who’s milked cows for a living I wouldn’t give two hoots if I have to get up in the darkness, as I’d get another hour of light time in the evening when it can be USED. As I now work 08:30-17:30 in an office I also think it would deliver a huge psychological boost to office workers to go home for far more of the year in the light. GMT +2 has been run successfully in the UK before (during WWII was it?). Let’s have it again and enjoy it!” Speaking of farmers, does everyone know that the NFU (National Farmers Union) no longer opposes the move? In fact, we’re hard pushed to find any organisations who disagree with Lighter Later!

Still feeling active? Here’s three suggestions for whiling away the afternoon:

1) Keep it live in the media by writing to your local Newspaper’s letter page (need inspiration? click here)

2) Write to your friends (need a template? click here)

3) Add the Lighter Later logo to your website, facebook profile or twitter account (want one? click here)

Follow all the latest as it happens here and here.

Phew, what a 24 hours! The press office phone been ringing off the hook and Lighter Later has been featured by everyone from Mumsnet and MSN to the Scotsman, the Daily Mirror and on the front page of the Observer. We’ve also been rocking the airwaves on radio shows across the country, even managing a brief stint on the  Andrew Marr Show.

Meanwhile, Lighter Later’s been going down an absolute storm online. The idea’s spreading like wildfire across Twitter (or “the tweetsphere” as one colleague insists on calling it) and our Facebook following is doubling by the hour. The best bit, however, is the incredible response from our new supporters, best summed up by Jake Bland on the Lighter Later Facebook page: “The more i think about it the more i think ‘why dont we do this already?!’ Its one of the rare occasions where a Facebook page/group seems like a good idea and/or is useful in some way. I fully support.”

All of this comes before we’ve even managed to get around to telling our own 60,000-strong 10:10 mailing list yet! We’re braced for serious chaos when the message goes out first thing tomorrow. Wish us luck!

Today sees the launch of Lighter Later, 10:10′s brand new campaign for Daylight Saving Time reform.

Over the coming days and weeks, we’re going to be updating this page, launching brand new stunts, competitions and events so make sure that you’re signed up to the site are following us on twitter and have joined our Facebook page for the very latest.

As Franny Armstrong – 10:10′s founder and Director of The Age of Stupid – says:

“Hands up who doesn’t want our country to be safer, lighter, more prosperous and with less pollution? And who doesn’t want to save money on their electricity bills without lifting a finger?”