Children’s Health: Vehicle Emissions

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, as ever it is a pleasure to follow the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, for initiating this debate. As a regular cyclist and a resident of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, I declare an interest as somebody directly affected by vehicle emissions from London’s increasingly anarchic and intractable traffic jams. I live very close to Putney High Street, which exceeds its NO₂ annual limit at the end of the first week in January each year. For 51 out of the 52 weeks in every year, it exceeds the legal limit. That is a great beginning.

The sudden emergency closure of Hammersmith Bridge by the local council has created a spider’s web of traffic jams, as drivers trying to cross the Thames attempt unsuccessfully to outwit one another, switching vainly from one navigation app to another. There is a stand-off between TfL and the council as to which body should pay the £40 million for emergency repairs. Should it be the council, which owns the bridge and is responsible for its upkeep, or should it be TfL, whose buses are held to be largely responsible for the parlous state of the bridge? However this is ultimately settled, the problem is likely to recur again and again: the new generation of best-in-class, zero-emission, Chinese, electric double-decker buses each weighs 19 tonnes, compared to the 12.5 tonnes of today’s hybrid double-deckers in London, which have caused the damage.

How are the Government responding to the dangers in the air which we all breathe? If effectiveness could be measured by the volume and weight of government reports and initiatives and much-trumpeted money to get these off the ground, there appears to be a high level of activity. However, if one measures the effectiveness by what is happening to our children’s health and well-being, one is perhaps less impressed.

The Government’s Clean Air Strategy 2019 admitted that:

“Road transport is responsible for some 80% of NOx concentrations at the roadside”.


What will they do about this? They aim to achieve zero emissions from vehicles by 2040, but admit that they will delegate much of the responsibility for this because:

“We expect this transition to be industry and consumer led”.


Perhaps the Minister would like to explain this to grass-roots organisations of concerned parents, such as the London-based, rather wonderfully named, Mums for Lungs. It is fighting to establish “school street” zones around primary schools to reduce pollution and its effects on children’s respiratory systems, and to reduce traffic flows and stop engine idling, all of which militate against feeling comfortable about walking or cycling with one’s children to and from school, let alone the worry of what is entering their respiratory and neural systems in the playground and the classroom.

Many noble Lords have mentioned the Channel 4 documentary, and the Minister might wish to consult some of the younger members of his family to find it on the Channel 4 on-demand app, All 4. I also commend today’s Times newspaper to him; if he reads page 12, he will find two somewhat disturbing articles directly related to the quality of our air due to vehicle emissions.

Why on earth should it be left to organisations such as Mums for Lungs to approach drivers sitting in vehicles outside their children’s schools with engines idling, and to knock on the window and politely point out that what they are doing is illegal and wastes fuel and money; that vehicle pollution causes around 40,000 early deaths per year; and that air pollution is actually between nine and 12 times worse inside your car than outside it? Is this what Her Majesty’s Government call a consumer-led approach? I salute and admire those mothers who have stepped bravely into what appears to be a leadership and compliance vacuum and who are shaming the powers that be, which they feel strongly are not doing enough to protect their children, to take action. They have helped establish no fewer than 38 “school street” schemes in London, and similar approaches are under way in Solihull and Edinburgh.

This is not, and should never be, a party-political issue; one might expect that from a Cross-Bencher. It is a human rights and human health issue which affects a significant number of innocent and vulnerable children. Delivering his February 2018 judgment in the case of ClientEarth v the Secretary of State for Defra, Mr Justice Garnham did not mince his words. He said there has been,

“a continuing failure by the Government to meet its obligation to reduce air pollution. It is eight years since compliance with the 2008 directive should have been achieved and the 2017 air quality plan is the third unsuccessful attempt at delivering a plan. All the while the health of those living in towns and cities is at real risk”.

So the buck is conveniently and predictably passed between central government, different departments and agencies, and local authorities.

While this is going on—indeed, while we are speaking in this debate—a child experiencing an asthma attack is being admitted to hospital every 20 minutes. Mike Penrose of UNICEF, who worked with the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health on a survey, concluded that the UK is home to more children suffering from respiratory conditions than anywhere else in Europe. That is not a comfortable verdict.

To stop the buck-passing and equivocation we need long-term, cross-party, cross-government, national, devolved and local concerted and co-ordinated action which prioritises the health and well-being of our most precious responsibility and future resource: our children and our grandchildren.

Lilian Greenwood, the Labour MP for Nottingham South and chair of the Commons Transport Committee, summed up the situation with painful clarity in a debate on 28 June last year. She said that,

“action is too fragmented, lacks clear leadership, and is not properly costed or resourced. There are no fiscal measures that support long-term behaviour change in a meaningful way”.—[Official Report, Commons, 28/6/18; col. 1091.]

If I ruled the world, every day would not be the first day of spring, but it would be a world in which government Ministers, of whichever Government happened to be in office at that time, would approach such grave issues as the hugely harmful effect on children of vehicle emissions with an urgency which is devoid of party politics; demonstrates a continuum of concern, commitment and action across all areas of government; and transcends changes in Minister, changes in Government and idiotic sideshows such as our current impasse over Brexit—it is causing us much harm by acting as a brake on much-needed government focus and momentum—because billions of nanoparticles are being released into the lungs of our children by the stopping, starting and constant braking which are a feature of our signal failure to tackle vehicle emissions.