Environment Bill

Lord Young of Norwood Green Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd June 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, will not be taking part in the debate, so I will move straight on to the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I have found this a fascinating debate. I put my name to Amendment 49, but I support the general approach of all these amendments. Clearly, air pollution is a key issue for the Government. I hope that, when we look at this, we do so in the round.

I cannot agree with the some of the statements, I am afraid. I heard the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, say that we have to ban all roads and we must not build any more. That assumes that those towns and cities that are being heavily polluted because the roads go through the town centre should have to put up with that. Similarly, she referred to the Silvertown tunnel. The argument for that is that the current Blackwall tunnel constantly gets blocked and the traffic queues cause more air pollution. There have been many occasions during this debate when people have said that we need to look at the evidence—we do.

More generally, I regard the investment that the Government are making in more cycle lanes as fundamentally important, as is encouraging young people to cycle or walk to school. The irony of it is that those children who think—or whose parents think—that they are safely protected in their SUVs are actually breathing in more pollution than if they were out walking or cycling. Of course, if they were doing those activities, they would also be getting the benefit of exercise. I welcome the targets; they are important. How we achieve them, through monitoring, et cetera, is important.

I too read that article on leaded petrol, which remains in the city 20 years on. Above that article, and perhaps even more interesting in some ways, was one on smart traffic lights smoothing the way to reducing emissions by a quarter. It said:

“A new generation of smart traffic lights could be introduced after a government-backed trial showed that eliminating unnecessary stops at junctions can cut emissions by a quarter.”


That stresses the importance of ensuring that we do not forget that innovation will play an important part in reducing these emissions. I hope that, when the Minister responds, he will take into account—I am sure that he will—a holistic analysis, if you like, of what the Government are doing.

There may well be more cars on the road because people are a bit reluctant to travel on public transport at the moment. As someone who cycles every day and has had an electric car for a few years—I am lucky to be able to afford one—I like to think that I play my part. We are seeing changes in attitude. There are many young people these days who are not bothering to learn to drive or do not own their own car—they hire or share—so we should not be too pessimistic about the situation. It is serious, which is why I put my name down—I felt that this was a necessary probing amendment.

I hope that, when the Minister responds, he will give us that holistic analysis of how the Government intend to meet these targets and how they feel that they can respond to the very real and present impact of particle pollution, whether it is nitrous oxide or carbon emissions.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I added my name to Amendments 20 and 49, but I support the general thrust of all the amendments in this group. I am old enough to remember that, when I was a very young boy in 1962, my father had to wear a mask—we have got used to them these days—because of the smog in London. It was not the Great Smog, which was a few years earlier, but it was a serious incident of air pollution that killed a significant number of people. At that time, it showed up that, although the Clean Air Act had been brought in in 1956, there were serious gaps in it: it dealt with emissions of smoke but not sulphur dioxide. If we are not careful, there is a danger that we will think that we have solved this problem and things are getting better—there are indications of that, but we are far from perfect.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, I have been raising this for a long time: I remember having an Adjournment Debate in the other place in 2003 on air quality in London. That was based not just on my concern for the welfare of my fellow Uxbridge citizens but on my own experience of how I could feel the ill effects of increased pollution. Where we live in west London, there is Heathrow and the major roads, and we often seem to exceed the legal limits.

We have already mentioned one thing that convinced me that we have to go further: Ella’s campaign. A few years ago, I was fortunate enough to meet Rosamund, Ella’s mother, and I have not met a more courageous and forceful advocate for this. Despite the obviously terrible tragedy that she endured, she was able to be extremely convincing in all the arguments; she did not have to rely on the personal issue. We owe it not just to Ella but to all the other young people. As has been mentioned, it is very often those who live in less well-off areas.

There are difficult decisions. Of course, sometimes, as the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, has just said, there are occasions when traffic congestion could be eased, and smart traffic lights could provide one of those. The only trouble that I have with building more roads is that they inevitably get filled up. I remember that, when the M25 was first built—little sections of it—it was a joy because no one was on it, but it filled up quite quickly and sometimes is the largest car park in London, as I think many noble Lords will agree.

This is a really serious issue, and the Government must take forward the view that we must have ambitious targets. We should accept the WHO targets. This is something that I feel very strongly about.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

My Lords, I have received requests to speak after the Minister from the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Neville-Rolfe and Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, so I now call the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I apologise for using this vehicle to make a contribution; I had intended to put my name to these amendments. As I explained to the EU Environment Sub-Committee, ably chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, my knowledge of farming was gained mainly from listening to “The Archers”, watching “Countryfile” and growing a bit of fruit and veg in my garden. However, those programmes educated me considerably, and as I look around the Chamber and on the screens, I see that most of our committee seem to be present in this debate.

I do not dispute the genuine concern of the noble Lord, Lord Randall. However, rather like the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, I feel that the indefatigability of the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Jones, cannot be denied; it is the hyperbole and, sometimes, the extrapolation and the certitude that give me concern. As someone once said, “Think you in your bowels you could be mistaken?”

Malthus predicted the end of the world through population explosion, which proved wrong. The Chinese experience to control their population is now taking an about-turn. Never underestimate the ability of the human species to react—not always in the right ways. During the pandemic, surely the vaccine development has shown what we can do globally when we work collaboratively. Innovation will play an important part in combating species extinction.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, for reminding us of that seminal work by Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, and his warning of a third silent spring. Before I come back to that, the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, accused me of optimism: damned with faint praise, in this debate. Actually, I wanted him to give a holistic analysis of the steps the Government were taking to combat air pollution—which, fortunately, he did.

To return to the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and his warning of a third silent spring—

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

Can the noble Lord, Lord Young, please get to his question for elucidation?

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab) [V]]

I will do in a minute. I just want to make this point. Surely the fact is that we have changed farming considerably: 30,000 miles of hedgerow are not being destroyed, fertilisers are being more accurately applied and there is no tilling.

The Minister has answered most of my concerns. My question is: does he feel confident that the totality of the Government’s approach, whether it is ELMS or the other policies, will indeed enable us to set what he said will be evidence-based targets?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I certainly do. I am brimming with confidence, but we have more to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I put my name to Amendment 52, also in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Whitchurch and Lady Parminter, and the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge. I also support Amendment 53, in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and my noble friend Lady Boycott. I will not repeat what has been said about Amendment 52, but add one sentence: for me, the key issue is linking together the pieces of the jigsaw—the environmental improvement plans and the targets.

I want to ask the Minister about one point that has not been discussed so far. In Amendment 52, proposed new subsection (4)(f) refers to

“measures to minimise, or where possible eliminate, the harmful impacts of pollution on human health and the environment.”

One significant type of pollution that we have not discussed so far is noise. In 2018, the World Health Organization published a report entitled Environmental Noise Guidelines for the European Region. It says this:

“Noise is one of the most important environmental risks to health”,


second only to air pollution, and every year

“in western Europe alone at least 1.6 million healthy years of life are lost as a result of road traffic noise.”

The adverse effects of noise on health include increased risk of heart disease, cognitive impairment of children, sleep loss and tinnitus.

It is not only humans who suffer from environmental noise. According to a review published last year in the leading scientific journal Nature, noise pollution reduces the breeding success of certain bird species. A review for Defra, carried out by scientists at Bristol University, entitled The Effects of Noise on Biodiversity, points to an overall lack of evidence, but also mentions species of birds, mammals and amphibians from the UK list of species of principal importance that appear to be adversely affected by noise. Does the Minister therefore agree with me that it would be appropriate to include a target for reducing noise pollution in environmental improvement plans? The technologies for reducing noise are available, so it is a matter of the will to apply them.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab) [V]]

I am sorry, I meant to withdraw from this group, so I do not wish to comment. I apologise for not withdrawing earlier.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, has also withdrawn from this group, so I call the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd.