COP26 and Air Pollution
Debate between Jo Churchill and Gary Streeter(3 years ago)
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Jo Churchill
No. I am really sorry, but I have only one minute left. The Bill introduces new powers to compel vehicle manufacturers to recall vehicles and non-road mobile machinery if they are found not to meet the environmental standards that they were approved to meet—I think that answers a question that was raised earlier. It will enable the Government to compel manufacturers to recall vehicles and non-road mobile machinery for failures in their emission control.
New legislation came into force across England earlier this year to reduce PM 2.5 pollution by phasing out the burning of small volumes of wet wood and the sale of all house coal. However, some residents still rely on coal fires, so we have to work our way through those challenges.
The Government allocated £880 million to tackle nitrogen dioxide exceedances under the 2017 air quality plan for nitrogen dioxide. This year, the first clean air zones were introduced in Bath and Birmingham, which deliver targeted action to improve air quality and health and to support economic growth.
We are working hard to provide citizens with the information they need to protect themselves. I also have a Breathe Easy group. Those groups do great work, but we have to make sure that we work with experts so that we can get really timely information to people such as, “If air pollution is low, carry on as usual. If it is high, and you have asthma, avoid vigorous activity”. To do that, we need to do the monitoring that we are now scaling up, so that we have a good alert system to help protect people. That system was revamped in 2019.
There is just about a minute left. There is plenty more that we are doing and that we will carry on doing. We have different biomass anaerobic digestion issues and, as my neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) said, we have to make sure that policies do not fall against each other.
In conclusion, taken together, this is a comprehensive package. However, we have to do more by seizing opportunities and addressing risks. We need to take action to tackle climate change and air pollution. We are committed to cleaning up our air and carrying on our work.
