Guest post: Ashley Hutton on Double British Summertime

I'm writing to tell you that I've seen the light (www.lighterlater.org) and I hope you will too. In fact over 7,000 people have signed up in the past few days alone.

Everybody loves the sunshine, but right now we set our clocks so that we get less of it in our lives than we could. For big parts of the year, most of us sleep through hours of sunlight in the mornings and then use expensive and energy-hungry electric lighting to keep out the dark nights.

By moving Britain's clocks forwards by one hour throughout the year, we could brighten up our days with an average of 55 minutes of extra useable sunlight each day. Not only that, research shows that it would cut at least half a million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions every year, save lives on our roads and give a boost to sport, leisure and domestic tourism. What's more it's practically free and it could happen right away.

Changing our clocks so that we are awake for more of the time that the sun is out is a no-brainer. That's why I've added my voice to the growing movement calling for the next government -- whoever they may be -- to launch a three-year experiment to put the theory to test.

Join me and the thousands of other supporters of the Lighter Later campaign at www.lighterlater.org.

Ashley Hutton