My Lords, we on these Benches support the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, in her Motion Cl and her Amendment 3B in lieu. I will be brief, because I know she will give a great deal more detail in her winding-up speech a little later, but before I go into that, may I just disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack? When I came into this House 21 years ago, I was told that our job was to ask the Government at the other end to think again. Given the way party loyalties have changed in those 21 years, and given the very short amount of time the Commons
have had to debate the amendments we sent to them, I think we have every right to send some of our amendments back at least once—in fact, I know we have the right to do it more than once as long as we do not trespass on the governing party’s manifesto.
We have listened to the Minister’s objections to our earlier amendments on having greater ambitions to reduce small particulates, known as PM2.5, and have proposed instead an amendment which allows the Government a little more leeway on exactly which targets to set and when to set them. But it does hold the Government’s feet to the fire on the mean targets they can impose, aligned with the current and planned international WHO targets. I will not go into all the details of why it is so important to our health to do this, because noble Lords have heard this several times, but the Government’s net-zero strategy, published on 19 October, includes plans to phase out petrol and diesel land transport, and that is very helpful in relation to CO2 emissions. However, it does not tackle the whole problem of the small particulates which are so harmful to health. Much of this comes from brakes and tyres, as the Minister rightly said in his introduction, and some of it comes from industry, from static generators and other diesel engines. Therefore, we need an ambitious target for reducing small particulates from all sources, which would of course drive change in these areas too.
It is all very well to decarbonise our power system and make sure that we drive electric cars, but more is needed on the demand side. The Climate Change Committee has just done its independent assessment of the net-zero strategy and I note that one of its criticisms is on the lack of emphasis on consumer behaviour change. It said:
“The Government does not address the role of diets or limiting the growth of aviation demand in reducing emissions, while policies to reduce or reverse traffic growth are underdeveloped. These options must be explored further”—
in order to, among other things—
“unlock wider co-benefits for improved health, reduced congestion and increased well-being.”
This reference to “improved health” undoubtedly refers to the microparticles in the air we breathe; that is why we need Amendment 3B and the ambitious targets for clean air that it contains. Before I sit down, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, that the answer lies in the soil.