Air Pollution

Lord Trefgarne Excerpts

Monday 8th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

Noble Lords will have heard us mention the office for environmental protection a number of times over recent months—it has been the subject of much discussion. When the environment Bill comes before your Lordships, it will contain provisions which will give the OEP the ability to hold government and other bodies to account, and to work retrospectively. We are already looking at the targets set by the WHO. The targets are very tough; no other major economy has so far been able to adopt them. What we have decided to do is look at them and see what action we would need to take to reach them.

[Lord Trefgarne (Con)]

My Lords, can the Minister say what steps are being taken to devise means by which older cars will cause less pollution, for example by catalytic converters, filters and other methods of that kind?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

Air pollution is a complex area—not only is it about what comes out of cars, but also what comes out of stoves and things such as carpets and paints. We need to move people on from older cars, which are far more polluting, and get them into ultra-low emission vehicles. The way to do that is to provide various grants and other schemes to encourage them in that direction. Eventually, people do change their cars, and I hope that they will look at zero-emission vehicles.