We hate to break it to you but you are going to be sacrificing an hour in bed as the clocks go forward this weekend.

Spring has arrived and in order to get those long sunny summer days it means changing over to British Summer Time. 

While the clocks went back in October, as British Summer Time starts and Greenwich Mean Time ends the clocks go forward by an hour.

The clocks go forward one hour at 1am on the last Sunday of March.

This means, this year, the time changes this weekend on March 28.

Why do we change the clocks?

British Summer Time was first introduced during the First World War by Germany and Austria to save on coal usage.

George Vincent Hudson, a New Zealand entomologist in 1895, and British businessman William Willett have also been credited with the idea as a way of getting up earlier and so having more daylight hours after work.

In 1907, Willett published a leaflet called The Waste of Daylight, encouraging people to get out of bed earlier.

It was discussed by the government in 1908, but it wasn't made into law.

When the First World War broke out the need to save coal saw the idea put into practice. 

In 2019, The European parliament voted to scrap the twice-a-year custom of changing the clocks by an hour in spring and autumn by 2021.

In 2018, it was reported the then EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker was backing calls to ditch the twice-yearly changes to the time altogether.

Reports indicated that an EU-wide poll had shown citizens were in favour of abandoning the changeovers in spring and autumn.

When will the clocks go back in 2021?

British Summer Time will end when the clocks go back an hour at 2am on Sunday October 31.

The UK will return to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).