Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-09-06
Topic: Environment
John Lawrence Whitty (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I declare an interest as I am still a vice-president of Environmental Protection UK, which for most of its lifetime was the National Society for Clean Air. In that capacity, I was a bit remiss in not putting down an amendment myself. I was originally fooled by the Government; it does not happen very often, but it did on this occasion. I thought that by having this as the second clause and PM2.5 right up front in the Bill, they had really seized the opportunity. I did not read it properly Clause 1 sets a particular status for long-term targets that then run through the rest of the Bill, but this clause says the target for PM2.5 "may, but need not, be a long-term target." Parliamentary draftsmen are usually comfortable putting "may", because that gives them a certain amount of flexibility, but on this occasion they put "but need not" very clearly. That means that the target envisaged in this clause, as it stands, does not have all the overriding principles and follow-through in the rest of the Bill that a long-term target has. That is why the clause, as it stands, has to be amended I support all these amendments. I just want to say two or three other things that colleagues have not yet covered. Before I do so, I say to the House that, in the debates on air quality over the years, one supporter was the late Viscount Simon, a lifelong sufferer from asthma who normally took part and had a lot of insight; we will miss him I point out, first, that the WHO targets were set on the basis of health information from over a decade ago. Hopefully, the new ones will be updated. The limits that we have been working to on EU standards were largely set—and I speak as a pro-European—by what the German motor manufacturers would put up with. Even then, they fiddled the testing. So, what we put in as our targets here have to be robust, health based and universally recognised It is also important to mention something else. There is a bit of an assumption that, since traffic has been the biggest contributor to air pollution, this is being resolved as we move away from diesel cars. It is not. A lot of pollution from traffic comes from brakes and friction between tyres and the road. In any case, of course, traffic is significantly increasing. The problem will not automatically resolve itself. We need new measures, both for vehicles and for the way we manage traffic. Also, as I believe is covered more fully in a later amendment by the noble Lord, Lord Tope, there are a lot of non-traffic-related sources of PM2.5 and other forms of pollution. They have to be covered just as rigorously Thirdly, as my noble friend Lord Kennedy pointed out, the tragic death of Ella Kissi-Debrah happened because of where she lived: on the South Circular, an already heavily polluted road. I would ask local councils of all political complexions not to alter their traffic arrangements to divert the heaviest traffic to areas where the poorest live and where there are likely to be more pedestrians and more children. Moving air pollution around is not a solution. I hope that is recognised I support these amendments as they stand. I hope that the Government will be prepared to take at least some of them on board and we can start making a dent in what is a truly terrible aspect of urban life and the health of our people.