Environment Bill (Third sitting)

Jessica Morden Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2020 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

I am going to start taking questions in twos because we do not have a lot of time left, but is there a follow-on question specifically on that?

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

Q How does what the UK does to tackle air pollution compare to other countries?

Professor Lewis: It depends how you want to measure success. We do quite well in terms of the concentrations that people are exposed to relative to other European countries, but we have the great advantage of a massive Atlantic ocean upwind of us, so that is probably not a fair measure of success. We have some natural geographic advantages.

Another measure of success is national emissions. There are a basket of air pollutants with which we have targets under both the Gothenburg protocol and the national emission ceilings directive. They set the tonnages, effectively. On those, the UK meets its targets reasonably well. It does not stand out as being an overperformer, but it is not a laggard either. Most of the large European economies have seen their emissions reduced broadly at the same rate, but we do slightly better in terms of concentrations and exposures just because of geography.

[The Chair]

Thank you. I will take two questions now. Perhaps the witnesses will decide between them who is the most appropriate person to respond in each case. I know that might be asking a bit much, but try and think about that.