My Lords, I am grateful to speak in the gap and add my congratulations to those offered to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for this comprehensive Bill. I also pay tribute to Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, whom I am delighted to see with us here today.
We have with this Bill an opportunity to do something bold and ground-breaking which would be a fitting legacy for Ella, her family and her supporters. I want to comment on some of the Bill’s strengths and some of the potential improvements that could be made to it. First, this is a comprehensive framework Bill. We all sat through the debates on the then Environment Bill, during which an element of air quality legislation was discussed and introduced, but it lacked anything like the comprehensive framework that this Bill puts forward. Therefore, the Government have all the powers they need to act on air quality but none of the duties and none of the legal momentum that would force them to crack this problem.
The positive news is that this problem can be solved, now more so than at any time in history. As the noble Baroness pointed out, the solutions to both climate change and air quality are one and the same, and that is to stop burning things—specifically in places where there are vulnerable people in high density who will be harmed by it. If we could just get that sorted out, we would make huge progress in bringing our cities back to life, making them once again liveable and solving climate change. This is what is before us, and if we get this legislation right, we can do this. We can do it to a timescale that is fast and therefore can save lives.
I am grateful to see such cross-party support for the Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, indicated, if we get it right in Committee, we stand a chance of getting it through this House with, one hopes, the support of the Government.
I turn to some of the elements of the Bill which I think are strong. Air quality is not something that we experience in the average; we experience it in spatial and temporal specificity. By that, I mean that certain days and certain places become dangerous. They do so
because toxins that are released stay in the atmosphere and in certain conditions—weather conditions most commonly—they build up to dangerous levels. The way in which we have regulated on air quality to date has simply been too academic—too many milligram limits per pollutant—when we should focus on the fact that we know what the sources of these pollutants are; mostly, they track back to the burning of things. If we can regulate those temporally—when we know there is going to be an air quality incident that is very likely to damage health, we restrict those activities—we will make a huge leap forward in the way we treat this problem and how we keep people safe.
Similarly, we should disaggregate the legislation by geography, focusing on the places where people are most vulnerable and where people live. Cities in particular, of a certain size, need to be regulated differently. Cities are wonderful places, particularly for young families and for older people. When you have a child, you want to be surrounded by other people and you want them to live in a community. When you are elderly, you want to be in places where there are provisions and all the support that you need. So, the most vulnerable in our society, the very young and the very old, should be in cities and want to be in cities, yet they are polluted, and their health is impaired by living in those places. Geographic specificity in air quality management is therefore fundamental, and this Bill includes measures that allow us to start to do that. It is incredibly important that that is taken forward. Some of the powers in Clause 2(4) talk about focusing on the areas where harm can be greatest.
We are starting to see evidence where geographically specific measures have been taken. An example is Oxford, which has been the first place to ban combustion vehicles entering the city. We are seeing that city benefit in health terms and in liveability, and it is boosting the sale of new and clean technologies in that area. That shows that such technologies are now available and that you can respond to these limits on the burning of things.
There are also some fantastic measures in the Bill around informing the public. Clause 3 requires forecasts to be shared and information to be provided to the public about incidents that will cause environmental harm. Most importantly, the Bill has teeth. It allows action to be taken and has quite a clever mechanism with the creation of the CCCA.
I have been told that I must stop, because I am speaking in the gap. As noble Lords can tell, I am very passionate about this subject, and I think that this is a great Bill. I look forward to Committee and I hope the Government can support it.
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