Air Quality

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, under our arrangements in the air quality plan to do with nitrogen dioxide in particular, there are all sorts of ways local authorities can take action, and they have ability to create clean air zones. That is on the statute book and is something we are working on with local authorities. Clearly there will be highly localised solutions to some of these problems with nitrogen dioxide.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, is it worth reflecting on the fact that the last Labour Government cut the duty on diesel and encouraged us all to buy diesel cars? Will my noble friend not take lectures from Labour on what we should be doing?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, we now have to deal with a very serious issue. We are not compliant only on nitrogen dioxide; we are compliant in all other areas of air quality. This is one that we need to address. My noble friend is absolutely right that this problem has come about because we dashed for diesel. It is diesel vehicles that have caused the problems with nitrogen dioxide that we are now addressing.