Air Quality and Emissions

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park]

While the world is rightly focused on tackling the immediate threat of coronavirus, the global challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss, which in many respects overshadow and dwarf the threat of coronavirus, have not gone away. As we rebuild our economy in response to the pandemic and make decisions about reconstruction, it is vital that we make decisions which provide long-term resilience and sustainability, and that we avoid decisions that will end up imposing big costs on future generations.

The Government are absolutely committed to being world leaders in tackling the environmental crisis we face. We are going to continue our ambitious legislative agenda through our landmark Environment Bill, Fisheries Bill and Agriculture Bill, all of which combined will help us deliver on our 25-year environmental plan. The noble Lord will have heard remarks and commitments by the Secretary of State for Transport just a couple of days ago, in which he announced a record level of funding for active travel—alternatives to car use and even public transport use.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

As short as possible, please.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, given the Minister’s interest in Heathrow, does he agree that the aviation sector has contributed more than 26% to greenhouse gas emissions in the last five years? Yet Heathrow is going ahead with an appeal to the Supreme Court for its third runway. Does he accept that this highly polluting business model is now defunct, and can he tell us what the Government’s position is on that Supreme Court appeal?

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[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park]

The Statement made by the Department for Transport a few days ago included increased investment in charging networks throughout our cities, which has direct implications for private car use. Equally, we are ramping up investment in transforming our buses from being in many cases very highly polluting to being as close to zero-emission as possible. On the whole, the dominant thrust in technologies is in the direction of electric travel, but it will be for the market to determine ultimately what is the best value for money in delivering clean transport for the future.

[The Lord Speaker]

My Lords, as we have made comparatively little progress on this Question, I will allow a couple more minutes.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, an area that tends to get overlooked is air quality in the domestic environment, and of course home is where we have been spending most of our time in recent weeks. In January, NICE published guidelines including recommendations for research. What steps are the Government taking to encourage research in this area and increase public awareness of air quality in our own homes?

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[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park]

The request to delay the clean air zones came directly from Leeds and Birmingham. It follows the reality that has I think affected every local authority and department of government: numerous personnel have been sidetracked by their need to address this immediate crisis. The Government responded to that request positively, but it does not in any way diminish our recognition that clean air zones are an essential, necessary part of our efforts to bring us in line with the air quality targets we have set ourselves.

[The Lord Speaker]

My Lords, the time allowed for that Question has more than elapsed. We come to the next Question from the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence of Clarendon.