Environmental Targets (Fine Particulate Matter) (England) Regulations 2022

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2023 Lords Chamber

The third salient point is that the benefits of doing so would be very rapid indeed. The CMO’s report suggests that 30% of the reduction in mortality from reducing air pollution occurs in the first year, and 50% in years two to five. Let us think about that. A reduction of between 30% and 50% of up to 38,000 deaths a year would be an extraordinary gain for the people of this country. However, because, unlike the smog in the 1950s, we are dealing with something that is essentially invisible, at the proposed rate of knots primary school playgrounds, GP surgeries, shops and high streets will continue to have killer levels of pollution that will go unattended for years to come. Surely the Government should think again.

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, I have long taken an interest in this subject. When I came into this Chamber I did not intend to speak, but I was utterly shocked by the way the Minister—who in many respects I have some respect for—dismissed the case for a much more ambitious target. My noble friend has set out in great detail how that could be achieved, and why it should be achieved.

I was, until recently, the president of Environmental Protection UK, whose origins were in the National Society for Clean Air, which proposed the Clean Air Act in the 1950s. It was the Minister’s predecessors, in the Conservative Government of Anthony Eden—which does not have a high historic record—who adopted the Clean Air Act when they were told by people, like those who have got at the Minister, “You’re going to try and change people’s habits and they’re not going to stop burning coal”—but they did. I speak as a child bought up in London with asthma in the 1950s. Those five years, in which they cleaned up London, probably mean I am still alive and here in your Lordships’ House today.

It was incredibly dismissive of the Government to condemn those who were advocating tighter regulations. They are based on strong medical evidence; the campaigns that the evidence here dismisses are mainly informed by strong medical evidence that this kills, it deforms and it limits life in all its respects. The Minister needs to take a grip, think again and come back and respond to my noble friend with something better. Otherwise, this Government have something to be seriously ashamed of.

[Lord De Mauley (Con)]

My Lords, we all have a growing understanding of the devastating effects of PM2.5 and particulate matter in general on human health, and we welcome efforts to bear down on them. I think I heard the noble Baroness sidestep the question of what an appropriate target was, preferring simply to demand more ambition. Although other noble Lords have made some suggestions, she did not answer my noble friend the Minister’s question of what actions she specifically proposes should be banned or seriously cut back. It is important that the public know what they are.