Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of air pollution on different groups by ethnicity.

While air pollution impacts many people’s health, the department recognises that these impacts are not felt equally. This is an issue that Defra takes seriously, which is why the Government commissioned the independent Air Quality Expert Group (AQEG) to examine the evidence on air pollution disparities across different communities and regions in the UK.

Their report demonstrates spatial differences in pollution emissions and concentrations. There is evidence of higher air pollution concentrations being experienced by certain minority ethnicity groups.

The report provides a number of recommendations to address this complex challenge, which the department is now considering and have fed through to commitments in the NHS 10 Year Plan and the Environmental Improvement Plan.