Improving Air Quality

Debate between Lilian Greenwood and Neil Parish

Thursday 28th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend, who chairs the Health and Social Care Committee, makes a good point. Once we have the money, there are limitless things we can do with it. The unfortunate fact is that we do not have the money at the moment. I think the Government have felt that. Walking, cycling and altering the way we go about our daily lives is all good. It is good for our health, and it gets us out of our cars.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that money would be well spent because, if we succeed in getting more people on to their bicycles or walking, it will deliver long-term savings both to physical healthcare and mental healthcare and create better communities?

[Neil Parish]

The hon. Lady, who chairs the Transport Committee, is absolutely right that the money would be well spent. Our health would be improved, and therefore we would save money on the NHS and we would be able to spend the money in other ways.

Why are there private individuals in this country who are prepared to bring a case against VW, yet we, as a Government, have singly failed? I would be interested if the Minister could give us some insight into why we allow private people, quite rightly, to bring a case, yet the Government are not supporting them and are not bringing a case themselves.

There is not a satisfactory system for overseeing how money is spent to improve our air quality. Our report finds that Departments are clearly failing to work together. The Government have promised some modest improvements, and I am sure the House looks forward to an update on that in the very near future, perhaps even today.

The Government response tells us that a consistent approach was taken to appraising the cost of air pollution, yet during our joint Committee hearings I was deeply concerned to learn that the then Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), was not even aware of how much economic impact air pollution has on the UK.

It is clear that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Treasury, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Department for Transport, the Department of Health and Social Care and local authorities not only need to collaborate more effectively but need to collaborate, full stop.

Community Transport

Debate between Lilian Greenwood and Neil Parish

Thursday 10th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Lilian Greenwood]

My hon. Friend is exactly right, and I suspect I will hear from many more hon. Members who want to talk about their local providers.

On reading through the many comments on the Committee’s online forum from community transport groups, drivers, users young and old, their families and even a tea shop and bed and breakfast in the Yorkshire Dales, it is clear just how important those services are to people’s daily lives. It is noticeable how many people referred to them as a lifeline. I recommend that everyone looks at #WithoutCT on Twitter to see the range of socially valuable activities that would simply not be possible for some without a local community transport operator.

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

I thank the hon. Lady for the report and for what the Transport Committee is doing on it. Community transport is important, especially in more rural areas, and especially to enable our elderly to get to hospitals all over the place. We have to try to provide some direct help with fuel costs or insurance—something that will keep those community groups going. They often cannot afford to run commercially, but they can do such a good job with some support. They do so all across my constituency, as I am sure they do across hers.

[Lilian Greenwood]

The hon. Gentleman is right that those services are invaluable. It might be a regular trip to the shops, a lift to a social or sports club, or a visit to the doctor or hospital, as he just said. It could even be something that we would all strongly advocate: a lift to the polling station on election day.

Community transport encompasses a broad range of services, whether that is lift-giving by volunteer car drivers, dial-a-ride minibuses for people with disabilities or other mobility problems, or community bus routes that would not otherwise exist because they are not commercially viable. I have seen the importance of Nottingham community transport in my area, and I am sure that we all have wonderful examples that showcase how local community transport operators serve our constituencies. That is why we support and highly value community transport, and why we want and need more of it, not less. We must not take it for granted.

A vibrant, not-for-profit community-based system is becoming increasingly important to complement existing commercial bus and taxi services, and to plug gaps in provision that are growing in many places because of pressure on local authority budgets. Last summer, however, the community transport sector faced an existential crisis. The Department proposed an about-turn in relation to not-for-profit operator licensing arrangements that could have serious, perhaps catastrophic, implications. Grave concerns were expressed by the sector, and by hon. Members across the House, which is why the Transport Committee became involved. I am proud that it was the first issue we considered after I was elected as Chair.

We heard evidence from all sides, including from the commercial operators who claim that there is unfairness in the current system, from hundreds of community organisations that feel under threat, and from the public bodies whose job it is to oversee the licensing and regulation of both sectors: the Department for Transport, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency and traffic commissioners. Our report was published in December and the Government responded in February, alongside the launch of their consultation on proposed changes.

My anxiety is that despite the work of our Committee and others to expose the dangers of the Department’s approach, the Government have not yet started to listen fully or engage properly with those legitimate concerns. A potential crisis has not yet been averted.

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

Debate between Lilian Greenwood and Neil Parish

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.