It’s time to stop turning the clocks back

British households could save £400 a year if we left the clocks alone this weekend instead of putting them back an hour, according to Professor Aoife Foley, an energy expert at Queen’s University Belfast. The logic is simple. We use a lot more electricity in the evening than in the morning. That is why daylight savings time was introduced in Europe and North America during the First World War. Some countries later abandoned it only to bring it back during the Second World War and during the energy crisis of the 1970s. Every time the reason was the same: it saves precious energy.

As Britain and Europe grapple with an energy crisis going into winter, it is surprising that so few people have suggested the easy fix of year-round British Summer Time (BST). Whilst the impact of lighter evenings is most pronounced in the summer, the logic applies to winter too.