Environment Bill

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I am delighted to see all these amendments and I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and the noble Lords, Lord Whitty and Lord Kennedy, for bringing them forward.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, gave an excellent introduction. I just have one slight problem with it: while the current Mayor of London is doing a lot on air pollution, he is also building a road that will negate virtually everything he is doing and has done. The Silvertown tunnel should be stopped immediately with not another penny spent on it. We all have to understand that building new roads is a mistake anywhere in the country, but especially here in London, when we should be concentrating on better, cleaner methods of transport.

I have worked the issue of air pollution on since 2001. The mayor at the time, Ken Livingstone, made a very good stab from a standing start at reducing air pollution, even though at the time it was just a warning flag that we were about to break EU limits. He did what he could in terms of the congestion charge and encouraging cycling, even though he was not a cyclist himself. Sadly, as soon as the mayoralty was taken over by the current Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, things went a little bit skew-whiff. He did not get the whole issue of air pollution and that is a big problem because we know that, if you do not have targets for reducing something, it is likely to not get done. If we are going to clean up our toxic air, this Bill has to set binding targets.

The sources of air pollution are widespread: industry, transport, buildings and agriculture are all major contributors. We have to understand how each of those can be cleaned up and improved, not just for all of us who breathe it in in the cities, but for farmers who also experience a huge amount of pollution in their daily lives.

Air pollution has been found to cause death after a coroner ruled it was a cause of death for Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah. I pay tribute to Ella’s mother Rosamund, who campaigned and fought for so many years to reach this verdict. Ella is the first person to ever have air pollution as a cause of death and it is now official that Ella’s painfully cruel death was unnecessary, preventable and should never happen again to any child or adult. If the Minister is in any doubt about putting targets on air pollution into this Bill, I urge him to meet Rosamund, who fought a fantastic campaign virtually alone when she was suffering immeasurable grief from losing her eldest child. I think he would be convinced and would take it back to the department to insist that we put targets on air pollution into this Bill.

The coroner in Ella’s case said that

“there is no safe level for Particulate Matter”

in air and recommended a reduction in the national pollution limits to bring them into line with World Health Organization guidelines, which is exactly what my Amendment 29 would do. It would hook air pollution targets to the latest WHO guidelines and require the targets to be updated as the science develops. I believe this is the only safe way to proceed and the only way to be true to Ella’s legacy, so that no more children will die from choking on toxic air.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op) [V]]

My Lords, I support the intention behind all the amendments in this group today. I agree with the contributions of my noble friends Lady Hayman and Lord Whitty, and with virtually everything that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, said. However, I will restrict my remarks to Amendment 156 in my name in this group.

The amendment seeks to put Ella’s law into the Bill. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, mentioned, on 16 December last year, the coroner in the case found that the death in 2013 of nine year-old Ella Kissi-Debrah, who had a severe case of asthma, was caused by “excessive air pollution”. Ella lived in Lewisham, in south London, very near to where I live. The fact that this poor child suffered a terrible death from breathing in toxic particles should be a matter of concern for us all. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, did, I want to pay tribute to Rosamund, Ella’s mother, for her tireless campaigning over seven years to get the verdict on 16 December last year. Ella is the first person in the UK to have had air pollution listed as a cause of death. We all know that thousands of people die every year due to respiratory failure, but Ella’s doctors, and others, were clear that the filthy air she was breathing was suffocating her and contributed to her death, and that is now recorded on the death certificate.

Amendment 156 in my name seeks to place duties on the Secretary of State in the Bill to ensure that the health of members of the public is put centre stage. I hope that the Minister and all Members of the House will support that. The amendment may not be perfect, but it sets out clear targets for the Secretary of State for particulate matter, at WHO levels, and a plan to achieve compliance, along with the monitoring of air quality, the publishing of live data and providing information to the public. It also seeks to ensure proper education, training and guidance for healthcare professionals.

I am hoping for a very positive response from the Minister today. I want to hear him say very clearly to the House that he is prepared to meet me, my noble friend Lady Hayman, Ella’s mother Rosamund and members of the Ella’s law campaign to see if we can get an agreement to put this in the Bill before we come back to this issue on Report. I assure the Minister that we will come back to this issue on Report, and I hope to be able to do that on the basis of co-operation and agreement. I look forward to the Minister confirming, at the end of this debate, that he is prepared to meet me and the other people I have listed.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I am delighted to have the opportunity to support this group of amendments, because this is the point where general environmental and climate change benefits directly coincide with health benefits. It is therefore plain common sense to give them total priority.

Reducing emissions of NOx, CO₂ and PM2.5 are vital targets. I read this week that research by Imperial College London has revealed that, in London and other cities, there is still lead in our atmosphere—in the air. Lead was banned from petrol 20 years ago, so we need to bear in mind how long it takes to produce a long-term solution to these problems.

The problem with the Bill as it stands is that, although it commits to targets, they are too vague and much too far in the future. The Environmental Audit Committee drew attention to what it called the “needlessly long timeframe”. The details of the target will not be in place until the end of next year, when it could be in place as soon as the Bill passes through both Houses, and there will be no requirement to meet the target until at least 2037. That is so distant as to absolve the current Government, and the one after that, of any sense of responsibility and incentive to take the difficult decisions required. Even the aviation industry, which has the greatest technical challenges in dealing with emissions, is urging the Government to set shorter-term interim targets. It argues that only shorter-term targets will incentivise investment in nascent clean technologies.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I tried to explain our approach to air quality monitoring in response to the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, but the noble Baroness has taken up the issue as well. There is a network of monitoring across the UK. It is not complete or perfect, but we keep it permanently under review and have committed increased investment both to fill in the gaps and to upgrade and update the infrastructure, just to make sure that the network is doing what it is supposed to.

The noble Baroness asked where the responsibility lies. While the responsibility for meeting the national target that we will set as a consequence of the Bill, the PM2.5 target, will clearly be with national government, there is a huge role for local authorities when it comes to delivering those reductions. This will happen only as a result of partnerships. There are things that local authorities can do to tackle air pollution, but there are things that they cannot do and areas in which they rely on national government. For example, the initiative on cars—the transition to electric vehicles—can be helped by local authorities via charging networks, but fundamentally it will result from national policy.

The noble Baroness mentioned idling. Ultimately, that will have to be enforced by local authorities. I was involved in campaigns of that sort, specifically on idling, as the Member of Parliament for Richmond Park. It was extraordinary how many people would unthinkingly leave their engines on at a level crossing that would sometimes be down for nearly 10 minutes. Once they were politely asked to turn their engines off, they always did—not surprisingly—and we found that behaviour improved dramatically over just a few months. The local authority became better at issuing fines for repeat offenders. That was not the objective—no one wanted to see an increase in fines—but it was effective as a deterrent.

It is a complicated answer because ultimately, if we are to get where we need to go, it will be through collaboration between local, regional and national government.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response to this important debate. When I spoke to my Amendment 156, I made a request to him to meet me, my noble friend Lady Hayman, Ella’s mother, Rosamund, and members of the Ella’s law campaign. He did not address that when he spoke, so I ask him again: will he please agree to meet us before we get to Report?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I apologise for not addressing that. Yes, I am very happy to meet. We will be in touch after the debate.