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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the impact of emissions of nitrogen dioxide from ships at English ports on the annual mean concentration limits set out in the Air Quality Standards Regulations 2010.

Domestic shipping contributed 11% to total UK nitrogen dioxide (NO2) emissions in 2022. The Air Quality Plan for NO2 addresses the primary cause of exceedances of the concentration limits set by the Air Quality Standards Regulations 2010 (AQSR): emissions from road transport.

The UK has been at the forefront of international action to reduce NO2 emissions from shipping through work at the International Maritime Organization, and from 2021 the UK gained additional protection as additional restrictions on NO_x emissions came into force in the North Sea Emission Control Area.