Comments made by Prime Minister Gordon Brown regarding the adoption of year-round daylight saving time aka Single Double Summer Time (SDST) have stirred UK tourism’s hopes of gaining an extra hour of leisure activity and an additional £3.5 billion a year in economic benefits.

Daylight Saving

If the plan is approved, clocks would be put forward by an hour, so winter time would be GMT+1 and summer would be GMT+2.

In addition to the £3.5 billion boost, SDST would also add 80,000 jobs to the tourism industry, reduce accidents and the associated expenses, and produce possible energy savings.

The Prime Minister told tourism leaders that the proposal is under review. Senior ministers are also said to be putting pressure for SDST to be included in the Labour party’s general election manifesto.

SDST has been brought up numerous times in various forms in the UK Parliament for the last 15 years or so, but hasn’t been accepted due to opposition from Scotland and the farming sector, which stand to suffer from the loss of early morning daylight.

It is, however, very much to the benefit of the tourism industry. The Tourism Alliance even sponsored a report on the likely impact of SDST on UK tourism, compiled by Dr. Mayer Hillman, Senior Fellow Emeritus, Policy Studies Institute.  The report concluded that the change would result in 3% to 4% increase in earnings and the addition of 60,000-80,000 new jobs.

But the last time that British clocks were set one hour ahead all year round (in between 1968-1971), it turned out to be hugely unpopular, and the Commons voted it down by a 361 to 81 margin. Historically speaking, year-round DST has been introduced only as an emergency measure – such as during wars – to improve efficiency and productivity, and then scrapped when things improve.

In the United States, DST was introduced for seven months during WWI in 1918 and 1919. It was repealed after the war, and later brought back for WWII - on February 9, 1942. Remained in effect until September 30, 1945. After the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo, extended DST was put into effect for two years, and scrapped in 1975 because of opposition from the farming states.

In May 2001, the California State Legislature sent a request to the US Congress, asking that states be allowed to extend DST year round. But the request was never taken up for consideration by Congress, and then forgotten in the wake of 9/11.

The 2010 schedule for DST in the US begins March 14 and ends November 7. Given that the current economic situation qualifies as an emergency, it looks like a good time for giving states the choice to introduce year-round Daylight Saving time.

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