COP26 and Air Pollution

Ruth Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you today, Sir Gary, in what has been a collegiate and consensual debate. While the world’s eyes are rightly looking to Glasgow, I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) for securing this important and timely debate. He has been a Member since 3 May 1979, which translates into 15,524 days, and he still has his finger on the pulse.

The House has heard me say before that air quality is one of the most important policy areas and issues facing all our constituents the nation over. The facts are there for us all to see. They all show just how damaging toxic air is to our communities and its disproportionate impact on the health and wellbeing of our people. Coronavirus has highlighted the inequalities and disproportionately impacted on those living in the areas with the worst air.

Air pollution is bad for everyone––we know that––but for the 12 million people in the UK who live with a lung condition such as asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, it poses a real and immediate threat to their health. A spike in air pollution can lead to symptoms getting worse, flare-ups and even hospitalisation. We know from the coroner who investigated the death of Ella Kissi-Debrah that it can lead to death, too. There is robust evidence of a clear link between high levels of air pollution and increased numbers of patients with breathing problems presenting at hospitals and GPs’ surgeries.

I was delighted earlier this year to co-host Labour’s clean air summit with the shadow Secretary of State. In the first summit of its kind to be hosted by a major party, we set out our demands for a clean air Act. Labour’s clean air Act, which we will deliver when we form a Government, will establish a legal right to breathe clean air by ensuring the law on air quality is at least as strict as the World Health Organisation guidelines, with tough new duties on Ministers to enforce them and grant new powers to local authorities to take urgent action on air quality. That stands in stark contrast to the Conservative party and would deliver improved air quality across England.

Conservative inaction has allowed catastrophic levels of air pollution to build up across the country, especially in the most deprived areas of our big cities. Indeed, this Government’s refusal to take even the smallest steps to tackle illegal levels of air pollution leaves local government on the frontline in the fight for better air quality.

It is not just me expressing concern at the inaction of this Government: it is felt by Members of the Minister’s party, too. I note the speeches of the hon. Members for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) and for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) and indeed that of the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) on the Environment Bill just two weeks ago. I just wish that they had resisted the pressure of the Whips and voted for Labour’s amendment to write the WHO guidelines into the Bill.

Last week, I met Rosamund, the mother of Ella Kissi-Debrah, who died in 2013. We spoke about the need for urgent action to clean our air and the fact that COP26 could set an example––a British-made example––to generations to come. In December 2020, the coroner ruled that Ella had died as a direct result of air pollution, as we have heard already today. The coroner said that he believed that air pollution made a material contribution to Ella’s death. Like so many, she was exposed to illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter in excess of WHO guidelines. I would like the Minister to explain why the Government voted against Labour’s attempts to clean our air by writing the guidelines into the Environment Bill.

I pay tribute to the many parents, young people, experts, campaigners and elected representatives here today who are working to clean our air and save our lives. I look forward to working with my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield and others to deliver Labour’s clean air Act, and the Minister is of course very welcome to join us, because the future of the planet and the lives of our people depend on it.