Air Quality

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2016 Westminster Hall

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Fourth Report of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee of Session 2015-16, Air Quality, HC 479, and the Government response, HC 665.

Thank you for chairing this sitting, Mr Betts. It is lovely to see so many members of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee here today to support our work on tackling air quality and our recent report. We took evidence again two days ago on air quality, so this debate is timely. It is good to see the Under-Secretary of State for Transport in her place.

Tackling Britain’s air quality problem must be at the top of the Government’s agenda. Poor air quality contributes to around 40,000 to 50,000 early deaths every year in the UK. This is 20 to 30 times the number of people who die on our roads in traffic accidents every year. Poor air quality is a silent killer. In any other area of policy, the Government would be moving heaven and earth to get it sorted out as quickly as possible, and that is what we now need to do. The Government have been in court twice, and twice they have lost their case. This is a matter of urgency for the quality of life of all people in this country, but especially for those who live in our inner cities in hotspots of air pollution.

The Committee’s report in April 2016 said that poor air quality is a public health emergency and called for strong measures to tackle the problem, including an overarching Government strategy to tackle it in all sectors, with flexibility for councils to implement their own clean air zones with higher charges for the most polluting vehicles in those areas, a scrappage scheme for the oldest and most polluting vehicles and proper incentives in the low-emission vehicle market. We have an able Minister here today from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, but she is not answerable directly to the Department for Transport or the Department for Communities and Local Government. Everybody—the whole Government, including the Treasury, which deals with vehicle taxation, and others—must work together to deliver a good and urgent response. We want action, not just words.

The Government are in the dock. Having lost their case in the Supreme Court in April 2015 for failing to meet the legal air quality limit, they then lost again on 2 November 2016. The High Court case was brought by the campaign group ClientEarth. The judgment was that the Government had not fully complied with the Supreme Court’s earlier ruling and that their old air quality plan was not up to scratch. DEFRA must now release a new draft plan for air quality by 24 April 2017 and a final report on 31 July 2017—four months away and seven months away.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Given that the Government have twice been pulled kicking and screaming into court to lose cases for breaching EU air quality limits, does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that post-Brexit we will not have that regime to ensure mandatory, legally enforceable air quality limits?

[Neil Parish]

The hon. Gentleman raises a good point. Provided the Government do not tamper with the great repeal Act and that EU legislation automatically becomes UK legislation, there should not be a problem. I do not think the Government would do that for the simple reason that not only would it be wrong, but people in this country expect decent air quality. I think it will rise up the political agenda more and more, and I suspect that trying to water down environmental control on air quality would not be popular with anyone.

[Geraint Davies]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that 40,000 people are already dying prematurely, so there is no reason to think the Government are treating the matter seriously or that post-Brexit they will fulfil the legal obligations they are being dragged into court to fulfil?

[Neil Parish]

We have two years at the very least before we leave the European Union. The case is being made that the Government must be answerable with a proper plan by July 2017, so I think much of this will be driven before we leave the EU. I still believe they would be very unwise and careless to try to water down legislation on air quality when people are becoming much more aware of the situation. It is reducing life expectancy and all Governments of whatever colour will be asked to commit to policies to improve air quality dramatically.

The High Court case was brought by ClientEarth. To lose once in the Court could be seen as careless; to lose twice is negligent. The Under-Secretary told the EFRA Committee that the High Court case was a wake-up call. How many more wake-up calls do the Government need? Urgent action is needed now to address the problem once and for all.

On Tuesday, the EFRA Committee held a fresh evidence session on air quality with the Under-Secretary who is here today and the Minister of State for Transport, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes). The Under-Secretary said that air quality is a top priority for her and the Transport Minister. We need evidence, but in this case I am afraid the Committee was unconvinced by the evidence we heard on Tuesday that there is enough urgency in the Government’s policy. The Minister repeatedly emphasised the role of local government in tackling air pollution and that is absolutely correct, but we must make sure the Government give the necessary powers and in some cases the necessary resources for that to happen. The Committee fears that, as happens under all Governments of all persuasions, it is easy to say, “It’s all in the hands of local government; it’s not in our hands.” Then local government turns round to central Government and says, “The Government haven’t done enough. We don’t have enough resource or the necessary legislation.”

We cannot keep arguing about whose problem it is, because it is the Government—it is DEFRA—that is in the dock, and in the end we have to answer for it. I do sympathise with this Minister, because she has to, and I am sure will, work with all other Departments, but getting all Departments to work together is a challenge in itself. However, we must do that, because in the end people will die prematurely if we do not sort it.

We talk in the recommendations about a diesel scrappage scheme. That is for older diesel cars in particular. The Government should consider a scrappage scheme. We had evidence on Tuesday from witnesses who talked about that. I do not want to make it too complicated, but perhaps it could be targeted slightly at income as well, because what often happens with a scrappage scheme if we are not careful is this. The professional middle-class people think, “Well, this is a very good time to change our car. We have a car or two that are older and we can have a new car.” The problem is that many people in our inner cities who are driving older cars may not necessarily have the income, even with a scrappage scheme, to go out and buy a new car. Perhaps if we could target a scrappage scheme not only at diesel cars but at those who can least afford a new car, we could do something about the problem.

In addition, it is now possible to convert many diesel cars to liquid petroleum gas. That cuts their emissions by about 70%, but again, is it really wise to spend a lot of money on an older diesel car?

The current—illegal—Government plan provides for only five compulsory clean air zones, but we know that pollution in dozens of areas elsewhere in England exceeds EU limits. That is why the Government must look at the whole country when considering hotspots, which is where the high levels of pollution are. The answer to a written question that I tabled to DEFRA is that a full 40% of councils in the UK breached nitrogen dioxide limits in the last year. The problem is widespread in our country; it is not just in our biggest towns. All local authorities should have the power, and the funding, to implement clean air zones if they wish to. In October, the Government provided a £3 million fund for local authorities to bid from to improve air quality. That is a start, but it is a very small amount of money, considering the number of areas that will need clean air zones.

As I said, we had the Transport Minister before us on Tuesday. The interesting thing that the Government have not yet accepted totally is that, not quite for a generation but probably for 15 years or more, there has been a push towards diesel cars. It has been advantageous to have “cleaner” diesel: people pay less road tax, and diesel cars emit less carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide and are much more fuel-efficient than many petrol cars. Previously, the issue was carbon dioxide; now, it is very much nitric dioxide, so we have to start moving the taxation system away from supporting the diesel engine and towards hybrids, clean petrols and electric cars. A grant system is in place—I will talk about that in a minute—but we also need to use a bit of a stick in order to move people away from diesel cars. I understand the position because I have diesel cars; indeed, many of us in this Chamber will have. It is a fairly clean diesel, but we have to start to say to people, “You have to try to change your philosophy from diesel to petrol to hybrid to electric.”

Since the Volkswagen scandal, we know that many emission figures were completely fictional. We have only to pick up a new car magazine. There are various ones out there, and they will give us a list of the manufacturer’s claims. They will say, “This car will do 68 miles to the gallon,” and then they will say, “True figure: 45—Government figure.”

There is no doubt that we have to get away from that. It is not just Volkswagen making such claims; all sorts of people are making the claims. It is just that Volkswagen is the one that got caught. In the end, we have to have a true figure, so that when people go to buy a car, they know what the pollution levels are and how many miles to the gallon it will do. This applies to anything else that is bought and sold in life. Surely it is against the Trade Descriptions Act that we are buying something when the claim about it is not actually true. We need to do much more on that. The Government must ensure that vehicle companies’ marketing claims are fully accurate and reflect real-world conditions. When devising the new plan, the Government must take into account the most accurate figures on vehicle emissions. If the new figures show an even greater need for additional clean air zones, the Government must act accordingly.

[Geraint Davies]

On the VW scandal, the hon. Gentleman will know that the Department of Justice in the US took VW to court on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency and is suing it for $12 billion, but I think that in Britain the figure is £1.1 million. Does he not think that through the British Government and, indeed, across Europe we should be taking firmer action against VW, given that we know the emissions are 40 times the EU limits because of the removal of the defeat devices, and that is literally killing thousands and thousands of people across Britain and Europe?

[Neil Parish]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. I suspect that the Americans took the case for various reasons—not just because of the pollution from the vehicles, but because they wanted to ensure that European vehicles did not get so much into the American market. However, we have missed an opportunity to drill down on Volkswagen. As I said, on Tuesday we had the Transport Minister before us, who said that the Government are now looking to sue Volkswagen. It is good if they are, but we should have got on to that more quickly. Look at the congestion charges that people have paid. If their vehicle was more polluting than was suggested by the band that the vehicle was in, surely Transport for London has missed out on extra charges that should have been paid.

To go back to my previous point, I believe that if an individual has been sold a car that has not met the standards, they should be compensated also. This is not just about the Government; there is a case for the individual, too. I have some sympathy for Volkswagen because it is the one having to face the music, but if we take action against Volkswagen, that will perhaps ensure that the other manufacturers also perform better and do not go down the route of misleading people and putting out the wrong figures for their cars’ pollution levels. The hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) makes a very good point.

We call in our report for incentives for a low-emissions vehicle market. The Government have made considerable progress in that area. It was very encouraging to hear my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announce £390 million of extra funding for electric vehicles, including £80 million for charging points and £150 million for low-emission buses and taxis. If we look at our inner cities, where the hotspots are, there is no doubt that the issue is the buses and the taxis, but there are also a lot of delivery vans now. With the new style of life, in which many of us will order goods online, more vans and small delivery vehicles are driving right into our inner cities. In the short run we need to look at whether some of those diesel vehicles can be changed to LPG and others moved to electric. Lorries are even more of a challenge. There is no doubt that the diesel engine pulls a heavy load so much better than an electric or petrol vehicle would. Again, we have to look at that.

In October, the Government launched a consultation on measures to support electric vehicles. It included bold proposals such as a national roll-out of electric charge points and better mapping and information for consumers. It was heartening to hear the Minister of State for Transport state on Tuesday that the modern transport Bill in 2017 will “specifically address” electric charging points. This issue is cross-Departmental. I urge the Minister here today to continue to work closely with her counterparts in joint ministerial groups to give ultra-low emission vehicles the priority they deserve, to tackle air pollution and air quality. This is not only about having electric charging points; it is about making sure that people can charge quickly. If we are going to get people to use electric cars over a bigger area, they have to be able to charge those cars quickly.

I will move on to agriculture emissions—of course, transport emissions dominate press coverage, but other sectors also cause air pollution, including agriculture. Before I do, I must mention that there are also building sites where we have generators and many of the dumper trucks—all those things people use on a building site—that are all diesel; some are gas-converted, but many are not. I am sure that the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) will talk about cruise ships and the need for electric to be attached to these ships so that they do not need to have their engines running while in port and here in London.

Turning to agriculture, the report recommended that farmers adopt practices that cut emissions of greenhouse gases and local air pollutants including ammonia. DEFRA needs to target support for farmers to improve manure and nutrient management and cut methane emissions through improved feeding for livestock. This is not just about the storage of manures; it is also about the spreading of them. It is about making sure that they are spread at the right time and, if someone uses artificial fertilisers, that those are put on so that they do not evaporate into the atmosphere.

One of the problems—being a practical farmer, I understand this—is that if ammonium fertiliser is applied and it does not rain, quite a lot of that fertiliser is released into the atmosphere. It is about trying to make sure that fertiliser is applied when it does actually rain. Believe it or not, even now, although the weather forecast is nearly perfect, it is not always 100% perfect—it does not always rain. Sometimes we can make sure that the fertiliser is injected into the crop. If we can get this right, not only would having less ammonia going up into the atmosphere be an advantage to the environment, but it would be a huge advantage to the farmer because he would be applying less nitrogen and making better use of it. It is the same with our fertilisers.

The New Zealanders have done quite a lot of work on making sure that grasses grown are more digestible. Believe it or not, that reduces the amount of methane gas that comes from the livestock sector. I declare an interest as a farmer—I do not want to see the end of the livestock sector in order to see less methane gas. We have to work out a smart way of using that ruminant—a wonderful animal that digests lower-grade proteins and produces a high-grade protein—to make it emit less methane gas. It is not just nitrogen dioxide, but gases such as methane and ammonia, that contribute to these air quality problems.

In conclusion, clean air should be a right, not a privilege. This matter is not going to go away and it is inconceivable, in my view and that of the Committee, that the Government should lose in the courts on this issue for a third time. The first air quality plan was illegally poor. The Government cannot make that mistake again. It is time for a comprehensive strategy to tackle this problem once and for all. We need to have some real practical measures out there that reduce the amount of nitric oxide, in particular, that is in our inner cities. I can assure Members that the EFRA Committee will continue to scrutinise the plans that are published by the Government next year. We intend, only metaphorically, to hold the Minister’s feet to the fire and to ensure that we make good very good progress in the future.

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[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I am probably something of an interloper today, given that I am not a member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. However, I am a member of the Select Committee on Health, and this issue is equally important to members of that Committee. As my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), the Chairman of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, said, this is an urgent and important issue. The fact that there are 40,000 to 50,000 additional deaths in the UK each year shows how significant it is, and we are right to pay real attention to it. However, we need to realise that this is also a global issue. The American Association for the Advancement of Science calculated that in 2013 there were 5.5 million deaths as a result of air pollution worldwide; 1.6 million were in China and 1.4 million were in India. That does not make the issue in our country any less urgent, but it is important to put the debate in a global context.

[Geraint Davies]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that 10% of deaths in the UK are linked to air pollution compared with 17% in China? Let us not pretend that we are not appalling and that they are worse.

[Andrew Selous]

I would not be speaking in this debate if I did not think this was an important issue. We all have a shared purpose, wherever we sit in the House, in wanting to take serious action on this issue.

Going from the global level to a local one, the constituency I represent has three market towns. One of them, Dunstable, has an air-quality management area in the town centre and in the Luton Road area. There are 37 different monitoring points for air quality in that area. I remember many years ago, not long after I was first elected, my excellent GP in the centre of Dunstable telling me that many more children who live in central Dunstable—close to the A5 trunk road, which goes through the middle of the town—suffered from asthma than the children who lived in Dunstable’s suburbs or the villages around the town. That is replicated up and down our country, not just in town centres. People who live next to busy roads are affected, which is something that we absolutely need to bear in mind in future planning decisions.

I completely agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton said about making sure that we transition from dirty energy in road transport to cleaner energy in an affordable way for our constituents. We all want clean air, but people have cars to get to work, to take the children to school and to go about their daily lives. Cars are a necessity for very many of our constituents. We need to think about who the people are who drive older diesels. They will mainly be constituents who are perhaps less well-off, which is why they are driving an older car that is a bit more economical. It is really important that we provide mechanisms to help constituents on lower incomes transition to cleaner vehicles, and I very much hope that we will.

In May 2011, I held a Westminster Hall debate on ultra-low emission vehicles. The then Transport Minister replied to the debate by saying that the Department had “two objectives”, which were

“to create growth and to cut carbon.”—[Official Report, 10 May 2011; Vol. 527, c. 382WH.]

Those objectives are both excellent. I hope that today the Minister, who I know really cares about this issue and is determined to make progress on it, will perhaps let us know about a third objective to go alongside the Department’s former second objective of cutting carbon—namely, to improve air quality. That would be very helpful.

I want to press the Minister on the scale of our country’s ambition and policy on ultra-low emission vehicles. When I held that Westminster Hall debate some five-and-a-half years ago, I noted that the Committee on Climate Change had said that the United Kingdom should aim to have 1.7 million ultra-low emission electric vehicles on our roads by 2020. At the time there were only 57,000, and I said that the total of 57,000 was a pretty small share of the then 28.4 million cars on our roads. I also noted that Japan had the much higher goal that 20% of all its vehicles would be electric or plug-in hybrids by 2020. It is important that we have world-leading ambition in this area so that, first, we get clean air, and secondly, absolutely critically, the United Kingdom is right at the forefront of benefiting—to ensure that we have good jobs, economic prosperity and growth—from this industry, which is taking off around the world.

Staying with the far east, China’s goal is to have 5 million all-electric and plug-in vehicles on its roads by 2020, and a number of Chinese companies are already working actively in that area. Zhejiang Geely has bought the London Taxi Company and is making the electric TX4 Euro 5 London taxi cabs, which will be launched in the middle of next year.

China Daily has referred to Norway and the Netherlands as

“leading electric vehicle growth in Europe”.

I am disappointed that China does not believe that the United Kingdom is in that position and I look forward, with interest, to what my hon. Friend the Minister will say on that when she winds up. Norway and the Netherlands plan to phase out diesel vehicles entirely by 2025, as do, at the city level, Paris, Madrid, Athens and Mexico City.

On the bus front, it is good to see that the Chinese battery company, BYD Company or Build Your Dreams, has teamed up with Alexander Dennis, the British bus company, to bring electric buses to London, Liverpool and Nottingham. I echo what the Chair of the Select Committee said about the need for joined-up, cross-Government action within this area, but I am most concerned about how we are tracking whether the United Kingdom is on target to meet our 2020 objectives. I would like reassurance that there is a real mechanism to look at that, and that, where we are falling short, Ministers are getting their heads together to take the appropriate action to ensure that we are a world leader in this area not just for our constituents’ health but for the benefit of the United Kingdom’s economy.

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[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the report. I serve on the Environmental Audit Committee, and I have proposed the Clean Air Bill that, in essence, calls for the development of sustainable public, private and commercial transport by road, rail, air and sea. Obviously, the background is diesel pollution. The Clean Air Act 1956 was passed to confront the 12,000 deaths in London in one year, 1952. Now we are seeing 9,400 deaths in London, and 40,000 across Britain, every year. We are looking at a silent killer on an industrial scale. At best, the Government’s position is complacent and negligent. They have been dragged into court and forced to abide by EU standards. The strategy is minimalist, rather than an holistic approach that confronts the real problem. We know that people are dying, be it through heart attacks, lung disease or strokes. Unborn babies are being exposed through the placental wall.

The Select Committee Chair mentioned VW, and it is appalling that VW’s NOx sensors were allowing 40 times the EU pollution limit. As I mentioned earlier, the US has taken firm legal action and sued VW for $12 billion, but the EU and the UK are doing virtually nothing vis-à-vis VW. We know that we need to take action.

I have been working in conjunction with the Health Alliance UK on Climate Change, which includes the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, The Lancet, The BMJ, the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of General Practitioners. We have seen the huge protests by doctors against diesel deaths. People are getting wise to the fact that they are driving around inside silent killers, and that politicians of various hues have overseen an increase in diesel cars from a market share of some 10% in 2000 to 50% of new cars now. Nearly 40% of the stock is diesel. Of course politicians are frightened of doing anything, but they must do something to save people’s lives and to save future generations. Poorer people and children disproportionately live near highly congested areas.

I completely agree with the Select Committee’s recommendations, and I want local government to be empowered to provide more infrastructure, such as modern electric trams. I want local government to be able to restrict diesel and heavy-polluting cars and vehicles from entering areas where there is particular vulnerability. I want the Government to introduce complete infrastructure for electric and hydrogen vehicles. As my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) said, electricity must be provided for ships that are coming into port and polluting local areas. There is another debate to be had about ships. Ships in the North sea create more pollution, diesel and otherwise, than the totality of transport in Britain.

We need to think about the wider picture. The Chair of the Committee mentioned agriculture and methane from cows; we must think about how to manage that as well, by promoting vegetarianism and encouraging best practice. We need to reduce the massive subsidies to the fossil fuel industry and the production of methane through agriculture. I know that people have been reconsidering Heathrow airport. A lot of the testing for the airport was based on old-fashioned modelling that underestimated the amount of emissions from cars roughly fourfold, did not even factor in emissions from the planes themselves, which will increase in number from 480,000 to 700,000 a year.

It really is not good enough. We have seen some action elsewhere: Paris, Madrid, Mexico City and Athens are seeking to ban diesel within the next decade. There has been talk in Germany; a motion was passed in the Bundestag to stop the sale of new diesel cars altogether across the EU from 2030. There are calls, whether caused by Brexit or otherwise, for the Government to support investment in hydrogen electric cars. In Swansea, we welcome the electrification of the railways, but it will not happen until 2024, and the trains will be diesel and electrified. Meanwhile, in Germany, they are developing the first hydrogen trains. We are absolutely miles behind and pretending to be at the front of the game.

The basic point that needs to be made is that we need a new, comprehensive fiscal strategy that encourages a clean and healthy future in terms of consumption and production and discourages bad, unhealthy and deadly behaviour. Since 1992, there has been basically no difference in fuel tariff between diesel and petrol, and despite inflation there has been no growth in either of them since 2010, so the real cost of diesel—the cost of promoting death—has been cut. We need differentials to emerge between diesel and petrol, and particularly in order to encourage electric and hydrogen.

I know that time is pressing for the Front-Bench speeches, so I will bring my comments to a close. I completely support what has been said in the report, and I think that much more must be done. I will circulate my detailed Clean Air Bill for comments and contributions, to help push forward on this growing problem for people not just in London but across Britain who want to protect themselves and their children from unnecessary death.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

We now move to the Front-Bench speeches. We are not restricted to concluding this debate by 3 o’clock; the two debates together may take three hours. There are 10 minutes for each of the Front-Bench speeches on this report, and the Chair of the Select Committee has the right to make a brief response at the end.

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[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Betts.

While the High Court judgment on 2 November has subsequently reinforced the points made in the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee’s report, the Committee must be commended for the seriousness with which it has looked into air quality and not least for taking further evidence on Tuesday. I know that the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) and the Committee have made a number of recommendations, all of which the Opposition would support or even go further on under our plan for action. I note that the Government have failed to take the advice in the Committee’s recommendations and plan, despite having had 239 days since the report was published to put a plan in place.

The Government’s buzz-phrase about leaving the environment better than they found it is already wearing very thin, as they have had six years to make significant changes in this area and have now been told to do so on three occasions by the courts—the European Court too, we must remember. The Government have been minimalistic in their response and have been told by the judiciary to think again. They have been exposed, not only in their lack of progress on improving our air quality, but in their deliberate attempts to water down improved standards for the 2030 EU directive, as my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) mentioned. The Government sought, through their MEPs, to adjust the ceiling on emissions to give Britain “flexibility” and allowed them to “adjust their inventory” if the country looked likely to breach targets. That is a scandal, and the Government must be held to account for it.

In the light of the Brexit discussions currently taking place, the question of exactly what form of regulation we will have over our air quality in the future is extremely worrying. While we are talking about leaving the EU, we must also be cognisant of what we have heard this afternoon about China’s air quality. If we are signing up to trade deals that will pollute elsewhere around the globe, as the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) mentioned, we should be incredibly concerned. We must ensure that environmental measures are written into all trade deals to improve international standards.

[Geraint Davies]

Does my hon. Friend agree that in the case of CETA—the comprehensive economic and trade agreement between Canada and the EU—it is imperative that we build in air quality standards and compliance with the Paris standards, so that investor powers do not simply trump environmental imperatives?