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WEST redirects here. For the direction, see West. Several countries and regions in the far west of Europe use a similar daylight saving scheme. While the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland always keep the same time as each other, there is a slight difference how they maintain it. In the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland standard time is (GMT/UTC) and the clocks are moved forward one hour for summer. In Republic of Ireland (according to the Standard Time Act 1968) standard time was CET and the clocks were turned back one hour for winter time. However, this was later amended under the Standard Time Act of 1971, which changed the standard time in the Republic of Ireland to Greenwich Mean Time. The start and end dates of the scheme are somewhat asymmetrical in terms of daylight hours; for example, the time of year with a similar amount of daylight to late October is mid-February, well before the start of summer time. The asymmetry reflects temperature more than the length of daylight.
Usage The following countries and territories use British Summer Time (BST) (Western European Summer Time - WEST) during the summer, between 1:00 UTC on the last Sunday of March and 1:00 UTC on the last Sunday of October. Starting in 1916, the dates for the beginning and end of BST each year were mandated by the Parliament of the United Kingdom. In February 2002, the Summer Time Order 2002 permanently changed the dates and times to match European rules for moving to and from daylight saving time. The European compromise was closer to previous British practice than to the practice elsewhere in Europe. Occasional debate breaks out over the validity of BST, due to Britain's latitudinal length. In 2004, an interesting contribution was made by English MP Nigel Beard, who tabled a Private Member's Bill in the House of Commons proposing that England and Wales should be able to determine their own time independently of Scotland and Northern Ireland. If it had been passed into law, this bill would potentially have seen the United Kingdom with two different timezones for the first time since the abolition of Dublin Mean Time (25 minutes behind Greenwich) on August 23rd 1916. During World War II, Britain retained the hour's advance on GMT at the start of the winter of 1940 and continued to advance the clocks by an extra hour during the summers until the end of the summer of 1944. During these summers Britain was thus 2 hours ahead of GMT and operating on British Double Summer Time (BDST). The clocks were not advanced for the summer of 1945 and were reverted to GMT at the end of the summer of 1945. In 1947 the clocks were advanced by one hour twice during the spring and put back twice during the autumn so that Britain was on BDST during the height of the summer. Safety campaigners, including the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), have made recommendations that British Summer Time be maintained during the winter months, and that a "double summertime" be applied to the current British Summer Time period, putting the UK two hours ahead of GMT during summer. RoSPA suggest this would reduce the number of accidents over this period as a result of the lighter evenings, as was demonstrated when the British Standard Time scheme was trialled between 1968 and 1971, when Britain remained on UTC+1 all year. RoSPA have called for the two year trial to be repeated with modern evaluation methods. The proposal is opposed by farmers and other outdoor workers, and many residents of Scotland, as it would mean that, in northern Britain, the winter sunrise would not occur until 10:00 or even later. Portugal moved to Central European Time and Central European Summer Time in 1992, but reverted to Western European Time in 1996 after concluding that energy savings were small, it had a disturbing effect on children's sleeping habits as it would not get dark until 22:00 or 22:30 in summer evenings with repercussions on standards of learning and school performance, and insurance companies reported a rise in the number of accidents.* In 2005, Lord Tanlaw introduced the Lighter Evenings (Experiment) Bill * into the House of Lords, which would advance winter and summer time by one hour for a three-year trial period at the discretion of "devolved bodies", allowing Scotland the option not to take part. The proposal was rejected by the government. The bill received its second reading on 24 March 2006; it is unlikely to pass as it is not supported by the Government. * The Local Government Association has called for a three-year trial of the Single/Double Summer Time (SDST). Start and end dates of British Summer Time Books | ||||||||
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