Leading Article: The times, they need a-changin'

WHAT modest change would sharply reduce road deaths and accidents, add an estimated pounds 600m to tourist revenue and cut about pounds 100m off energy spending? It is one that is regularly passionately debated, but as regularly delayed. It is the challenge of rationalising the twice-yearly adjustment of our clocks.

During the winter months, Britain - along with Ireland, Portugal, Iceland, the eastern seaboard of Greenland, and a group of west African countries including Mauritania and Mali - operates on Greenwich Mean Time, while the Continent is on GMT plus one hour. Yesterday we switched to GMT plus one, or British Summer Time, while the Continent kept one hour ahead by moving to GMT plus two. In the autumn, everyone puts their clocks back one hour, although Britain does it in October, a month later than the Continent. Thus for a mere four weeks - chaotic ones for transport timetables, but convenient for business people - Britain shares the same time as the Continent.

Such a messy arrangement naturally does not appeal to the tidy minds of European Commission officials. The British Government has long been under pressure from Brussels not so much to bring Britain on to Central European Time, as it is called, but to advance the October change to September. Any adjustment was however, ruled out after a Green Paper in 1989. This included a survey of interest groups which found 55 per cent in favour of a change, but 4,000 letters and petitions received subsequently were in favour of maintaining the present system.

The commercial and touristic convenience of alignment with the Continent would be great. More people would benefit from the gain of evening daylight for much of the year than would lose from the darker mornings. It would be more pleasant, and safer, to return home before dark. And in the spring and summer months there would be an extra hour of daylight in the evenings in which to garden or otherwise unwind and exercise. Tourism would benefit, as outdoor attractions could stay open later.

There are conflicting statistics about the effect of such a change on accidents, but a junior Home Office minister, Peter Lloyd, seemed to clinch the matter last summer when he told the Commons: 'Statistics do indeed suggest that an extension of summertime, or the adoption of Central European Time, would have a beneficial effect on road accidents, and there is a suggestion that there would be a saving on fuel.' That leaves the Scottish Problem. It gets light later up there, especially towards the sharp end: in late December, the sun rises at 8.45am GMT in Aberdeen, against 8.04 in London. But as there are so few winter hours of daylight up there, would the Scots really mind whether they got more of their meagre entitlement before or after lunch? One autumn, preferably this one, we should leave our clocks unchanged and from then on keep the same time as most of the rest of Europe.