Lord Framlingham
Main Page: Lord Framlingham (Conservative - Life peer)
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, I can assure the noble Lord that a considerable number of things are being done to address that, particularly in London and other cities, where it is a strong issue. I entirely agree that there is a big health issue here; that is precisely why we are working with colleagues from the Department of Health and the health agencies. That is precisely why we are encouraging investment in the ultra-low emissions market. We have the highest number of registrations of those vehicles in the EU. We are not alone: 17 other countries have a problem; five have proceedings against them. We all need to work on this and I agree that it is a high priority.
Lord Framlingham (Con)
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that one practical thing that we can do immediately is to push for more tree planting in all our inner cities? Trees take in our carbon dioxide and give us back their oxygen, doing more than anything else to improve the quality of the air we breathe.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
First, I entirely agree that we should be planting more trees. In fact, my party’s manifesto stated that we wished to plant 11 million more trees over this Parliament. Trees are a great enhancement to our lives, but we need to ensure their planting and location, particularly in urban areas, because if we have avenues of trees it is often difficult for the emissions to go up, which causes a local problem. There are all sorts of reasons why we need to be careful about the way in which we plant our trees.