My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 4 and speak to Amendment 12. Both are in my name and the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley, Lady Finlay of Llandaff and Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and I thank them for their support.
Amendment 4 would ensure that the new legal target for fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, commits the Government to reducing this pollutant to within the existing World Health Organization guidelines by 2030 at the latest. Amendment 12 would ensure that the importance of protecting health is reflected in the target review process set out in the Bill. But before I get into the detail of why these amendments are so important, I express my thanks both to the Minister and to the Defra officials for their time in meeting with me and others during the Recess and for the detailed information provided on their work in this area.
In his response to our amendment on air quality in Committee, the Minister said that
“the Government recognise the importance of reducing concentrations of PM2.5 and the impact this has on our health.”—[Official Report, 23/6/21; col. 306.]
Air pollution is also recognised by the UK Government to be the single largest environmental risk to public health that we have.
In Committee, noble Lords drew the Minister’s attention to the role that air pollution played in the death of nine year-old Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah. I was privileged recently to meet her mother, Rosamund, who shared with us her frustration at the Government’s lack of urgency in tackling damaging toxic air, despite recognising the serious health implications for people and communities. The motivation driving her campaign is simple: to make sure that what happened to her daughter does not happen to other people’s children. Amendment 54, in the name of my noble friend Lord Kennedy of Southwark, seeks to enshrine in law the recommendations of the coroner’s prevention of future deaths report into Ella’s death, and we strongly support it.
Sadly, air pollution accounts for eight to 12 deaths every year in London alone, and it is 13 to 15 year-olds who are most at risk. Until our air is clean, our children will continue to die. The Government must grasp the urgency of this. The UK currently complies with the less ambitious existing legal limit of PM2.5, which is double the WHO guideline. Reductions in this pollutant have stagnated in recent years, so setting a more ambitious target in the Bill would drive action to better protect people’s health. The Minister assured the Committee that the Government’s target on PM2.5 would be ambitious, and he acknowledged the gravity and urgency of the situation. However, we then heard that until the Government completed the ongoing work and consulted the public again about the kind of restrictions that would be needed to be placed upon us, particularly in large cities, it would not be appropriate to write that limit into law.
We understand that reducing PM2.5 to meet the WHO recommendations is not easy—there are uncertainties about the future and the impact of climate change, and there are natural ways in which these particulates are produced so we can never bring the limit down to zero. However, we are deeply concerned that the Government are still researching, modelling, discussing what to do and looking at further consultations two years after the publication of the clean air strategy and after the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants, which provides independent advice to the Government, said that reducing concentrations below the WHO air quality guidelines would benefit public health.
We have SIs promised for October next year but no indication as to exactly what the targets will be. It worries me that the Government’s unwillingness to accept this target and put it in the Bill might reflect their concern that the target is simply not achievable. The Minister has previously informed your Lordships’ House that
“at this stage the full mix of policies and measures required to meet the current WHO guideline level of 10 micrograms per cubic metre is not yet fully understood”,—[Official Report, 23/6/21; col.306.]
yet in 2019 Defra had technical analysis from leading scientists at Imperial College London and King’s College London which concluded that achieving the WHO guideline of PM2.5 was technically feasible. The analysis also highlighted that the measures the Government have already committed to as part of their clean air strategy could take us 95% of the way towards the WHO recommendation for what should be the basic level of protection.
Further independent analysis by King’s College London commissioned by the Greater London Authority, which I referred to in our previous debate, has subsequently shown that, with additional action, achieving the WHO guideline of PM2.5 is feasible by 2030 in our most polluted city in this country. Surely that should remove the main barrier to achieving this goal. The Minister also referred to the Mayor of London study, confirming that officials were going through it and taking it into account. Does his department now agree with its findings, and what action is being taken as a result of it?
Today we have seen the publication of a report, funded by the Greater London Authority and carried out by researchers at Imperial College London, that provides a comprehensive overview of the most credible evidence of the links between air pollution and Covid-19. We already know that air pollution has harmful effects on the lungs, but until now it has been most associated with non-infectious or non-communicable diseases that cannot be directly transmitted between people—for example, the links between air pollution and cancer, stroke and asthma are all well established. Covid-19, however, is an infectious lung disease, and questions have begun to be asked about whether air pollution played a role in the spread of this devastating disease.
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The report published today shows that the researchers have found, first, that exposure to air pollution before the pandemic increased the risk of severe outcomes if a person became infected with Covid-19. In other words, if you were living in an area of high pollution before the pandemic, you were more likely to end up in hospital or even die if you became infected. Secondly, exposure to air pollution may increase the likelihood of contracting Covid-19 if you are exposed to the virus. This is a new and evolving area of research because not everyone who is exposed may become infected. However, research is showing that people who are exposed to pollution may be more likely to become infected. Finally, there is pre-existing evidence that exposure to air pollution increases susceptibility to, and worsens the outcome from, a range of infectious lung diseases such as pneumonia and bronchitis.
Until now, the role that air pollution plays in increasing the risk of infectious respiratory diseases, including acute bronchitis in children and pneumonia, has been overlooked and underestimated. I ask the Minister if the Government accept these findings. Does he agree that this new evidence makes tackling air pollution even more urgent?
The WHO’s director of public health and environment, Dr Maria Neira, says that with the Environment Bill the Government need to
“raise the level of ambition”.
I wholeheartedly agree. This is a moment in time when the Government can be genuinely ambitious, not just talking about urgency but acting urgently. As the UK moves to a post-pandemic recovery and towards our net-zero carbon targets, action taken today to reduce air pollution will be crucial to ensuring a healthy, resilient nation, and put an end to even more families suffering as Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah’s family has done.
I know that the Minister understands this. I ask him to listen carefully to the debate today, to recognise the importance of urgent action—“urgent” means now, not next year—and to accept our amendments in good faith so that we can tackle the terrible effect of toxic air on our families and communities.
I am minded to test the opinion of the House on this issue but I will listen to the debate and look forward to hearing from the Minister.