Half of Brits want to keep daylight saving time, whilst 38% would scrap it
At 2am on Sunday clocks will jump forward by one hour to put the country on British Summer Time. The practice of daylight saving time, which means evenings will stay lighter for longer over the course of the summer, was introduced in the UK in 1916 during the First World War so as not to be disadvantaged by Germany’s adoption of the measure a few weeks earlier.
A century on, YouGov finds that half (50%) of us think the UK should continue to implement daylight saving time, whilst 38% want to see it scrapped.
Younger people are the most wedded to the shift to British Summer Time, with nearly two thirds (65%) of 18-24 year olds wanting to keep it. By contrast, older people are more likely to want to scrap daylight saving time, with 50-64 year-olds 47% to 43% in favour of ending it and over-65s favouring abandoning it by 49% to 45%.
With 58% in favour of keeping daylight saving time, people in Scotland are among the most enthusiastic proponents of maintaining the status quo, presumably because daylight becomes scarcer the further north you get.
The research also finds that Brits prefer the consequences of the clocks going forward to those of the clocks going back. More than half (53%) of people said they would choose to have lighter evenings even though it means losing an hour in bed, whilst just 19% would take the extra hour they gain in bed in October even though it means it getting darker sooner.
Photo: PA
