My Lords, I am delighted to have the opportunity to support this group of amendments, because this is the point where general environmental and climate change benefits directly coincide with health benefits. It is therefore plain common sense to give them total priority.
Reducing emissions of NOx, CO2 and PM2.5 are vital targets. I read this week that research by Imperial College London has revealed that, in London and other
cities, there is still lead in our atmosphere—in the air. Lead was banned from petrol 20 years ago, so we need to bear in mind how long it takes to produce a long-term solution to these problems.
The problem with the Bill as it stands is that, although it commits to targets, they are too vague and much too far in the future. The Environmental Audit Committee drew attention to what it called the “needlessly long timeframe”. The details of the target will not be in place until the end of next year, when it could be in place as soon as the Bill passes through both Houses, and there will be no requirement to meet the target until at least 2037. That is so distant as to absolve the current Government, and the one after that, of any sense of responsibility and incentive to take the difficult decisions required. Even the aviation industry, which has the greatest technical challenges in dealing with emissions, is urging the Government to set shorter-term interim targets. It argues that only shorter-term targets will incentivise investment in nascent clean technologies.
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We can be forgiven for being sceptical about the Government’s long-term commitment to improving air quality. A couple of months ago, the Government gained good publicity by announcing that they would include shipping and aviation emissions in their sixth carbon budget. This legislation came to the other place this week, with no mention of those commitments. This matters: both shipping and aviation are highly polluting and must be taken into account. This is a prime example of the Government caring more about the press than the planet.
Clause 3 allows the Secretary of State to lower or revoke any long-term air quality target set. Amendment 20, to which my noble friend Lady Walmsley has put her name, would ensure that the PM2.5 target will be at least as strict as the 2005 World Health Organization guidelines and will have to be attained by 2030 at the latest. This future-proofs the Bill much more effectively and avoids providing the temptation for a future Government in danger of failing to meet targets to decide to water them down. It also provides the sense of urgency that our climate and health crises deserve.
Emissions from transport—road, rail, air and shipping—make up around one-third of the total, and much more in certain hotspots. Unlike other sources of pollution, transport emissions have not fallen in recent decades, despite new technologies. This is largely down to two factors. First, there are more vehicles on our roads and more planes in our skies, and although very many of them produce less or no roadside CO2, they still emit PM2.5. Worse than that, CO2 and NOx emissions are bolstered by the popularity of SUVs, many of which are highly polluting. This is an example of the difficult choices that the Government need to make to change the structure of vehicle and fuel taxation to reward the least polluting vehicles and penalise the worst, thereby incentivising change. I remind noble Lords that only 0.5% of vehicles on our roads are ultra-low emission vehicles. That demonstrates the massive task ahead.
I want specifically to support the intention behind Amendment 21 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. As the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, made
clear, the tragic case of Ella Kissi-Debrah highlighted for us that average levels of air pollution are pretty meaningless as a statistic, because concentrations occur, particularly near busy roads. These unseen concentrations are lethal. They affect us whatever age we are, from the womb to the point of death—our brains, hearts, lungs, bloodstreams and much more. This is an equality issue, likely to affect the poorest and the most physically vulnerable. There is a clear and straightforward role for local authorities and highway authorities generally to monitor roadside pollution on a systematic basis and, very importantly, to report and advertise the results of their monitoring to warn residents.
Rapid government action is even more important following the pandemic because we are experiencing a car-led recovery. Car use is back at around 90% of pre-pandemic levels, while, outside London, buses are carrying only 60% of their normal number of passengers; trains are at 37%. Many of us are still working from home, yet road traffic is as bad as ever in many places, and the decline in numbers using public transport threatens future investment. If the Government are truly committed to improvement, they first need to take a scythe to their £27 billion road investment strategy.
The Government say that they want to leave the environment in a better state than they found it in. I regret that the Bill fails to do this in respect of air pollution. It needs improvement, and these amendments are a good start.