Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Environmental Audit Committee, Health and Social Care Committee and Transport Committee

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Thursday 22nd March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Neil Parish]

I thank my hon. Friend for so ably representing the Health and Social Care Committee in our Joint Committee. He raises interesting points about the number of illnesses attributed to poor air quality. Of course, we were suddenly told to drive diesel vehicles because we needed to reduce carbon, ignoring the nitric oxide and the particulates. That is now hugely affecting our health. He talked about what is happening outside our schools and inside our cars—we are being affected by particulates even as we drive along.

My hon. Friend made a particular point about schools, and I think that this issue applies not just in the inner cities but everywhere. I say to parents, “When you come to pick up your children, please don’t leave your cars ticking over outside, with all the levels of pollution that causes.” That is really important across the whole country, not just in the hotspots of very poor air quality.

On the point about Public Health England, we do need much better and much more information about how poor air quality affects our health. That would also raise public awareness of what we are doing as we drive, how we drive and what we drive. It would bring those issues home to people as they make their choices in future.

During the inquiry, my hon. Friend was keen to ensure that our air quality monitoring systems, both in local government and the national systems, work together so that we can collate the figures, to ensure that we get better air quality, and really drill down to find the worst affected areas. Overall, we can all do more to reduce the amount of pollution we create. I thank him for his question.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

I will try to keep my remarks short, to enable other hon. Members to ask questions. I associate myself with the comments paying tribute to and remembering PC Keith Palmer and those other members of the public who were killed or injured one year ago today.

The Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee was absolutely right to highlight the need for joined-up action, across Departments and in a shared responsibility with local authorities, as we set about tackling pollution. It is absolutely essential that the Government show leadership and ensure that all their policies, including taxation and spending policies, are working in concert, not at cross-purposes.

Moreover, does the hon. Gentleman agree that if action to accelerate the take-up of less polluting vehicles, whether cars, vans, trucks or buses, is accompanied by measures that change behaviour and enable and encourage more people to walk, cycle and use public transport, there is a real opportunity not only to tackle air quality, but to meet the Government’s other objectives, including cutting carbon emissions, reducing urban congestion and raising physical activity levels?

[Neil Parish]

I thank the hon. Lady for a great question and for her co-operation and work through the Joint Committee. She is absolutely right about reinforcing the fact that the issue is cross-departmental, because DEFRA is in the dock every time there is a court case, yet much of the solution is in transport and local government as we go about our daily lives. I went to Waterloo the other day to see the electric buses there. If we can get more electric buses across the whole country, that will really help.

With regard to the types of vehicle that we will use and their availability—the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) also raised this—we have to be absolutely certain that we know what vehicles we are buying and that they are properly labelled. Hydrogen vehicles might also be a solution in some places. We have to look at all these things and improve public transport across the piece. We also need to consider the way we run our lives. When we go shopping, for example, ideally we should go to the shops on the bus or on our bicycle, or sometimes shop online, and then all of it would be delivered by vans that were either hybrid or electric, not diesel. There are lots of things we can do not only across Government, but in the way we run our lives. I thank the Chair of the Transport Committee for her contributions.