Local Clean Air Targets

Alan Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Sir Charles. I appreciate being able to speak in this important debate, and I thank the hon. Members who secured it. On many occasions, I have spoken in this House about air quality issues, including how those issues relate to the wider challenges of climate change and the environment. Today, I will talk particularly about some very significant concerns affecting my constituency, relating to the existence already of one incinerator and the plans to build two more burners within miles of the existing plant, which was heavily criticised by local residents and, indeed, myself. It was one of the first campaigns I got involved in locally around the time of my election, eight years ago.

Those plans are deeply concerning. Waste incineration and biomass plants are often dressed up as green plants that are going to provide green energy and green solutions, when they are anything but. They are completely absurd, and sit in complete contradiction to not only our commitments under the Paris climate change targets, but WHO guidance on air quality; the UK’s own guidance on air quality; the Welsh Government’s guidance on these issues; the One Planet strategy that Cardiff Council has recently set out, which I will come to later in my remarks; and the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015.

The context, which has been set out ably by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) and a number of other hon. Members, is the current crisis and the impact of air quality on respiratory conditions. The wider impact of air quality on the health of young people and children is also of deep concern to me. Of course, my concern is about not just the plants themselves, but the trucking to them and the vehicle movement associated with them, and I will go through each of those issues in detail.

I am deeply concerned, not only because of the direct impacts but because these plants are often put forward and agreed to with lots of promises of jam tomorrow—district heating schemes, wonderful green energy and opportunities for local people—and they are often anything but. Certainly, the promises that were made regarding the Viridor incinerator in Splott in my constituency have not been fulfilled, and I am now deeply sceptical of any promises made by any of these companies about what they will do, because they seem to be simply greenwash.

I mentioned the Viridor plant that exists at the moment. I completely opposed it, alongside the Cardiff Against the Incinerator group. It burns 350,000 tonnes of waste a year, but as I understand it there have unfortunately been serious issues regarding the efficiency of the heating and burning process, which mean that the plant does not generate the levels of heat necessary to provide the so-called energy from waste that Viridor trumpeted at the very start. There are also issues with infrastructure access to the national grid, so it is not actually able—I have visited the plant myself—to provide energy to the national grid at the levels that it could do, let alone to any district heating schemes, because the appropriate infrastructure is not in place.

We currently have two other proposals under way. One is for an incinerator right on the border between my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones), who will be speaking from the Front Bench today. That burner would see 200,000 tonnes of commercial waste burned a year, 24 hours a day, with 40-plus lorry movements a day in an area that is already highly congested—a residential area where there are difficulties with road access. Some 116 other vehicle movements are proposed—I think that is probably an underestimate—in an area where we have the fantastic, brand-new Eastern High School, which has been invested in, and in other residential areas with other primary schools. These vehicle movements, let alone the incinerator itself, will be right next to where our children are receiving their education. That is completely unacceptable, and the fact that the incinerator is being placed right next to a wind turbine is absurd.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

Clearly, the Welsh Government have a really good track record when it comes to recycling—one of the best rates in the UK—so is there a reason why there is this demand for incineration plants? It seems contradictory.

[Stephen Doughty]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to point out Wales’s admirable record on recycling, which I was going to mention. Because we are recycling so much, the reality is that these plants often truck in waste from elsewhere and, indeed, from across the border in England. I have asked DEFRA Ministers questions about this before because there does not appear to be a UK-wide strategy for the movement of waste around the UK in a way that is both carbon-efficient and responsive to the air quality concerns in many communities.

It would be absurd if we simply became the dumping ground for waste from elsewhere across the UK, with all this stuff being shipped around and the associated air quality and emissions issues. It is also absurd that UK Trade and Investment and the Department for International Trade have been advertising internationally for investment in this incinerator plant, which is in my constituency and next to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West. It is being advertised as supposedly one of the premium projects for investment in Wales. What an absolute contradiction of other things that the Government seem to be saying. There is also the absurdity of proposing to put it right next to a wind turbine, which is exactly the sort of renewable energy we should all support.

I am also opposing the most recent application. Again, notice the name: Parc Calon Gwyrdd, which translates as “green heart park”. It is absolute nonsense, though I will not use any worse words, you will be glad to hear, Sir Charles. It is on Rover Way, behind Splott, a community already blighted by the Viridor incinerator. The proposal is to burn 75,000 tonnes of virgin timber that would be shipped from Latvia, and not even shipped to Cardiff docks, but to Liverpool or Felixstowe for trucking across the country. That could not be more absurd or more contradictory of our ambitions on climate change and air quality. Friends of the Earth has rightly pointed out that burning timber in this way is worse than coal in terms of emissions and particulates. I contrast that with the approach taken by Cardiff Council, which has just announced its One Planet Cardiff strategy with a focus on replacing single-use, fossil fuel-driven journeys with low-carbon modes and low-emission travel, supporting the transition to ultra-low-emission taxis and buses, a 100% shift to zero-emissions vehicles by 2030, and putting in the infrastructure to support that active travel. It is a big contrast.

I conclude with a quote from one of the local activists whose efforts I completely support. Catherine McArthur said:

“What future is there if your postcode automatically puts you at risk by the air you breathe?”

It is absurd to lock in last century’s technologies under this greenwash. My constituency is fed up with being a dumping ground for other people’s waste and with these activities going on right next to residential areas, schools and other communities. I will continue to wholeheartedly oppose this. I would like to hear from the Minister what strategic view is being taken of these issues across the UK and how we should be working with the Welsh Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles, and I am sure that everyone in the Chamber is delighted that I have pledged to speak for only five minutes.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) on securing the debate. He set the scene excellently, highlighting that air pollution is killing 40,000 people a year, that it affects child development and learning, its possible impact on mental health and Alzheimer’s disease, and that it exacerbates existing inequalities and increases the likelihood of covid impacts. Many other hon. Members highlighted that as well.

It is a mystery to me, when we look at the 40,000 premature deaths per year and at the strong, serious action we are rightly taking to combat covid-19, why there has been so much reticence to do more about air quality over the years. It really is a mystery. The hon. Member for Manchester, Withington said correctly in that it is shameful that ClientEarth has been the conscience that has held the Government to account, winning three times in court. We need to see much better leadership on the subject.

The World Health Organisation estimates that 7 million people are killed worldwide every year. This is a global problem. Although people are rightly concentrating on their constituencies today, this is a worldwide issue. It is estimated that lower life expectancy of some three years across the world is attributable to air pollution, so again, it is a global problem. We need to work with other countries to fight it. Hon. Members have talked about not relocating issues locally by cleaning up one part of a city and moving the problem elsewhere. That is important, but equally, we need to make sure we do not do that on a worldwide scale. That is something else to take into account.

Many hon. Members spoke about low emission zones, which are required to protect public health and improve the air quality in city centres. Many spoke about funding and Government support, and those are certainly needed. In Scotland, the Scottish Government run the low emission zone mobility fund, which offers cash incentives and travel better vouchers to help remove non-compliant vehicles and provide alternative transport options for people. That is something the UK Government could consider as a wider issue. In Scotland, low emission zones will be introduced in our main cities—Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee—in 2022.

Unlike other hon. Members who have spoken today, I admit that I am lucky in that, like the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) I am quite lucky, I stay in a rural area with fantastic air quality. I am lucky that I can go for walks in the hills and enjoy the beautiful countryside, but I recognise that poor air quality is a big problem in cities that needs to be addressed.

There are things the UK Government need to look at on a strategic level if we are to tackle this issue. Aberdeen has introduced the world’s first hydrogen-powered double-decker buses. In other words, a whole clean fleet of buses has come into operation in Aberdeen. That could be rolled out across other cities. The UK Government are supposed to be commissioning a fleet of electric buses, so I want to see where that bus fund is. It also supports manufacturing in the UK at Wrightbus and Alexander Dennis Ltd. The Scottish Government have procured 35 electric buses from Alexander Dennis Ltd through £7.4 million of funding, so I ask the UK Government to look at that. We also need to look at the refrigeration of HGVs. The refrigeration units themselves pollute more than the actual lorries that move the goods about, which the Government need to tackle.

On a kind of national infrastructure-type basis, the Government also need to look at the energy efficiency of homes. We badly need a heat decarbonisation plan from the Government, because this contributes to air pollution as well. On that strategic overview, I will leave it at that.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

We need to leave two minutes at the end for the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith). I will leave the Front-Benchers to do the arithmetic, but they have about 11 minutes each.