Improving Air Quality

Maggie Throup Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), who has great knowledge of this area.

I am delighted to speak in this debate, partly because I was a member of the joint inquiry that produced the report, but also because my family has been affected by a lung condition of unknown origin. My mother suffered from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a life-limiting condition diagnosed in about 6,000 new patients each year—it used to be 5,000 each year. Life expectancy from the time of diagnosis is as short as three years for half of those 6,000 people, with one in five surviving for five years—soon for longer, I hope, with the new treatments available. As the name suggests, no one knows what causes it. My mother did not smoke, so it was not that, but it could have been air quality—or, more correctly, poor air quality. We need to do whatever we can to tackle any root cause of lung disease, as no one should have to struggle for breath as my mother did.

I wish to focus on three areas. First, just yesterday I was talking to constituents of mine who had just brought a hybrid car. I was astounded when they informed me that there is only one public charging point in Long Eaton, one of my major towns, and that it is at a hotel, and therefore behind car park barriers. The joint inquiry highlighted the problem that there are too few charging points to support a wider uptake of such vehicles, and this rings warning bells for me. I can envisage a situation comparable to that which we have with mobile phones and broadband coverage—providers falling over themselves to provide services in highly populated areas, while the more rural areas miss out. The patchwork approach to funding and delivering charging points simply is not working. I therefore call upon the Government to do whatever they can to facilitate the installation of adequate infrastructure, to support the UK’s transit away from polluting vehicles. I would appreciate an update from the Minister today regarding the Government’s investment in electric vehicle infrastructure. The report’s recommendation for the Government to work with the National Grid and local authorities to identify the key practical barriers preventing a more rapid roll-out is, in my opinion, very valid.

My constituents yesterday also informed me that there are in the region of 30 providers, all requiring different apps to access their charging points. As petrol and diesel cars are phased out in the coming years, the practicalities of charging points also need to be considered.

Secondly, there was evidence in the report that it is of paramount importance for air quality monitoring to be carried out at key spots in local communities, such as near schools, hospitals and, as my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) mentioned, care homes. The Government’s acknowledgment that those changes need to be made is key, and the monitoring is very welcome because, as with any issue, knowledge is power. Data collected as a result of that monitoring should be disseminated to schools, nurseries and hospitals, with clear advice actions that need to be taken. That will also ensure that information can be available for families, empowering parents to make the right decisions for their children. As the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) highlighted, current data shows that a third of our children are living in areas of the UK with unsafe levels of particulate matter, so we need to take much more rapid action.

Thirdly, I shall discuss my local area. I have a combination of a wish list and an update on what is happening in Erewash and the wider Derby and Nottingham area. The World Health Organisation has reported that both Derby and Nottingham are among the 44 cities in Britain that have air that is not safe to breathe. I therefore plead with local authorities to put tackling that problem at the very top of their agenda. HS2 in the future, and improvements in rail infrastructure such as Ilkeston’s new station, can help to reduce the amount of road traffic heading into our cities.

Derby, famous for “planes, trains and automobiles”, is a highly strategic area for research and development of cleaner, greener transport for the future. The next-generation Auris hybrid car is to be built at Toyota in Burnaston, safeguarding around 3,000 jobs into the 2020s. It has also secured an investment of £240 million in the plant there.

We have heard from the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) of some of the initiatives that Nottingham city is taking, and I want to add a few items to that list. The University of Nottingham, in partnership with firms such as Rolls-Royce, is leading the way in R&D of cleaner, greener, more efficient engines. The university is also gaining a new £23 million research facility to drive breakthroughs in treatment and diagnosis of serious diseases, including respiratory conditions.

To return to Derby, the construction of a new nuclear advanced manufacturing research centre in Derby, which I mentioned during the urgent question today, would enable further research into and development of clean energy, as the UK looks to civil nuclear as a way of securing its power needs for the future. That would include exploring the viability of small modular reactors; as mentioned earlier, Rolls-Royce is leading the way in that as well.

Many exciting projects are being undertaken across the Derby and Nottingham corridor, and indeed throughout the country, that will make a contribution to improving air quality. However, we have no time to lose, so I urge the Government to do whatever they can to ensure that action is taken at scale and pace.