Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion

Catherine West Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

I am happy to tell the hon. Gentleman that the Each Home Counts review that we did, whose recommendations we have accepted, and where we have a trust mark for the work he mentions, should stop this problem happening in the future. Too much shoddy work has been done. Reparations have been made. Essentially, people have to have confidence that the work they are having done to their homes is of a high standard and is effective.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Tragically, Ella Kissi-Debrah lost her life to asthma, and the courts are currently looking at whether the authorities had any responsibility in that tragic death. I believe there is a crisis in children’s respiratory health. There is a meeting tonight with the title “Pollution Has No Borders”. One thing the Government could do would be to take away the cuts to local councils, which were looking at having more clean buses. Just increasing the number of bus journeys rather than car journeys would help not only lots of people on low incomes but the planet. Please could that be one thing that the Minister takes away from these questions and pledges to look into? Will she give that money back to councils so that action can be taken on our terribly polluted air?

[Claire Perry]

The hon. Lady is right to point out that one problem we do not talk about enough is that CO₂ pollution is often associated with particulate pollution, and one of the co-benefits of cutting emissions is that we get cleaner air. However, I gently say that she is wrong to focus on a reduction in budgets for zero-carbon transport. My recollection—I will check this and write to her—is that those budgets have gone up, and I myself have seen some of the hydrogen and hybrid buses that are running. Of course, the challenge is also to get more cars off the roads, because they obviously have a far greater level of pollutant per mile travelled, and to ensure that children, particularly in the most deprived areas, have clean air to breathe.