Twice a year, the UK switches between Greenwich Mean Time and British Summer Time as part of Daylight Savings Time.
This means that when the clocks change people will have an extra hour for a lie-in in winter, but an hour less in summer time.
However, in early February 2018, the European Union decided to reassess Daylight Savings Time in a ‘full evaluation’ that will examine the putative pros and cons of the system.
But when do the clocks go forward and back, and what is Daylight Saving Time? Here’s all the information on when the clocks change and why.
Under Daylight Saving Time (DST) the clocks go forward and back by an hour twice each year
When do the clocks change in the UK?
In 2018, the clocks go forward by an hour on Sunday, March 25, marking the start of British Summer Time (BST).
BST will begin at 01:00 GMT, meaning that people in the UK will have one hour less of sleep as 1am becomes 2am.
The reasoning behind switching to BST is to have more daylight in the evenings.
When do the clocks go back in 2018 in the UK?
GMT resumes in autumn, on Sunday, October 28. At 02:00 BST, the clocks will go back an hour to become 01:00 GMT again. This is so there is more daylight hours during the winter months.
An easy way to remember how clocks change is the phrase: Clocks ‘spring forward in spring, fall back in fall’.
What is Daylight Savings Time (DST)?
Daylight Savings Time is generally attributed to an Edwardian builder named William Willett, who wrote a pamphlet in 1907 entitled The Waste of Daylight.
Willett fervently campaigned for the adoption of British Summer Time.
In his pamphlet, he proposed that the clocks move forward by a total of 80 minutes in four stages throughout the month of April. That way, Willett argued: ‘We shall have 8o minutes more daylight after 6 p.m. every day during May, June, July and August.’
Willetts said that the benefits of adopting Daylight Saving Time included 210 extra hours of daylight and an annual saving of £2,500,000.
In 2018, the clocks go forward on March 25 marking the start of British Summer Time (BST)
However, for many years Willetts ideas and bill proposals were rejected. In a cruel twist of irony, Willett ultimately ran out of time, dying just before his proposals were adopted.
In 1916, Germany, seeking to conserve coal during the First World War, introduced Sommerzeit and put the clocks forward by one hour at 11pm.
The UK followed several weeks later with the 1916 British Summer Time Act. The act stipulated that the clocks should go forward by one hour from May 21 to October 1.
Many other European countries followed suit shortly after.
EU Daylight Saving Time Review
At the beginning of February, a proposal was floated on whether to scrap Daylight Saving Time and thus British Summer Time. On February 8, the EU Parliament voted to begin a review of DST.
The review comes after ‘impact assessment’ suggested ‘the existence of negative effects on human health, agriculture and road traffic safety’.
The research claims that one day after the clocks change, the risk of heart problems in older people increases, traffic accidents jump up by a third and children struggle in school.
The research says these events are down to the fact that the ‘the human body is made for a steady biorhythm’ and the clocks change affects it.
Benefits and drawbacks of Daylight Saving Time
As Willett outlined, the rationale for adopting Daylight Saving Time is that, by increasing the amount of daylight hours, energy consumption drops.
Another more social reason is that 9-5 societies would prefer to have an extra hour of sunlight after the working day is over. By rising earlier, some argue that DST helps depression sufferers, while others argue extra sunlight during the afternoon allows for outdoor exercise.
However, as the EU review shows, not everyone is for Daylight Saving Time. A 2015 YouGov poll found that people who opposed British Summer Time outnumbered its proponents 40-33 per cent. Just under a quarter of the British population (23 per cent) had no opinion either way.
When clocks change people have an extra hour in bed in winter, but an hour less in summer
Over half of people over the age of sixty (53 per cent) wanted to scrap the practice.
The main criticism of Daylight Saving Time is that the energy saving evidence is, as the French MEP Karima Delli said during the EU debate, ‘not convincing’.
‘Studies that show an increase in road accidents or sleep trouble during the time change must be taken seriously,’ he added.
Two American psychologists go so far as to argue that Daylight Saving Time produces ‘harmful effects’ that contribute to the US sleep crisis, and that it actually increases energy costs.