Business of the House

Aaron Bell Excerpts

Thursday 14th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

If I may give the hon. Lady good news, the Daily Mail reports today that the gagging clauses have been lifted by order of the Secretary of State; as soon as he heard about them, he said that they should stop and that freedom of speech is important. I reiterate the point I made earlier: 99% of Grenfell-style cladding has been removed already from social housing, and 84% from properties in total. Good progress is being made, although the hon. Lady is obviously right to continue to raise this important topic.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con) [V]]

It is snowing up here in Staffordshire as well.

I have two contrasting problems regarding air quality in my constituency of Newcastle-under-Lyme. The Government have asked the council to institute either a clean air zone or some other mitigating factors in one part of my constituency, but there is very little appetite for that, and it is clear that the changes wrought by coronavirus mean that the mitigation seems already to have largely happened. Conversely, we have an issue with odour coming from the site of a landfill, which is causing a great deal of concern to my constituents, and we have been unable to get the requisite action from the Environment Agency. Would my right hon. Friend be willing to schedule a debate in which we can raise issues of air quality more generally and hold the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to account in responding to the needs of my constituents?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend is battling for his constituents and is absolutely right to do so. Improving air quality is one of the most tangible and beneficial things we can achieve with a sensible environmental policy. Newcastle-under-Lyme and Stoke-on-Trent have jointly identified a package of measures, including bus gates and bus retrofit, to bring nitrogen dioxide exceedance in their local authority areas within legal limits. It has to be said that restrictions on motorists are always deeply tiresome. Stoke-on-Trent requested, and has been granted, a short period—to 15 February—to model alternatives to the proposed bus gate on Victoria Road. A clean air zone is not being imposed by the Government.

As regards the odour from the landfill, I understand that the Government are aware of this. I know from my own constituency that the Environment Agency has experts trained to sniff out odours from landfill sites to see if they are within permissible limits and whether there is a problem.