A controversial bid by the European Commission to ban seasonal clock changes is in breach of EU laws, a report has warned.

The proposed new legislation would force all member states to stop observing Daylight Saving Time (DST) - meaning the UK would need to stick to a permanent timezone.

The move has already been widely debated in the UK, with concerns being raised over children travelling to school in the dark, as well as the impact on farming.

The House of Lords has now been urged to raise formal concerns over the new legislation amid claims it goes beyond the remit of the EU treaty principles.

Lord Whitty, chairman of the EU Internal Market sub-committee, which wrote the report, said: "The European Commission’s proposal to end seasonal time changes goes beyond its remit and is not in compliance with the principle of subsidiarity. We are therefore recommending that the House of Lords issues a reasoned opinion.”

The move away from clock changes needs the support of all EU countries and backing from MEPs to become law.

The report, which claims individual countries are best placed to decide time zones for themselves, will be debated in the House of Lords on Wednesday.

If enough member states raise concerns, the Commission will be forced to review its proposals.

EU countries fall into three timezones - Greenwich Mean Time, Central European Time and Eastern European Time.

The move would "not affect the choice of time zone" and it would "ultimately remain each member state's decision whether to go for permanent summer or wintertime (or a different time)", the proposals state.

While the UK is on course withdraw from the EU, it would still need to observe the new legislation, due to be implemented next year, during any transition period.

Daylight Saving Time has been in operation in the UK for more than 100 years and means that clocks go forward an hour on the last Sunday of March and back an hour on the last Sunday in October, which is this coming Sunday.

Under current EU legislation, citizens in all 28 EU countries are required to move their clocks on these set days.

In the UK, there have been many arguments for and against any changes to the current system, including widespread opposition in Scotland where - under some proposed changes - the country would be in darkness until around 10am in winter.

However, there are also arguments in favour of some changes.

Road safety charity Brake and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) both support a move to Single/Double Summer Time (SDST), which would move the clocks forward to GMT+1 in the winter, and GMT+2 in the summer, increasing evening sunlight all year round.

The system, RoSPA says, would have the net effect of saving around 80 lives and 212 serious injuries a year, however under the current EU proposals this would not be allowed.

An experiment in Britain which saw British Summer Time (BST) used all year round between March 1968 and October 1971 is also often cited as evidence of the benefits of a change.

RoSPA claims it prevented around 2,500 deaths and serious injuries during each year of the trial.

However, the experiment also coincided with the introduction of the Road Safety Act 1967 and the introduction of breathalyser tests.

And while there was a reduction in accidents in the UK overall, some reports suggested an increase in Scotland - particularly in the morning rush hour period.

Despite this, RoSPA has previously argued that scrapping DST could be beneficial for children, with Kevin Clinton, the society’s head of road safety, saying: “Child pedestrians are particularly vulnerable during the afternoon school run, when they digress on their way home and so are exposed to traffic risk for longer than their morning trip to school.”

In 2011, Conservative MP Rebecca Harris also sought to hold a trial where the UK’s clocks would be moved in line with the RoSPA recommendations.

However, her private member's bill was ultimately unsuccessful, failing to receive the backing of MPs.

At the time, former first minister Alex Salmond heavily criticised the campaign, claiming it would “plunge Scotland into morning darkness”.

The Scottish Government is still essentially opposed to any changes, with a government spokeswoman saying: "The Scottish Government’s established position is there is no substantive economic or social case for any change to existing arrangements, or for different time-zones within the UK.”