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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what proportion of total mass concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in the UK in 2020 was directly attributable to primary emissions of PM2.5 as reported in the National Statistics release published on 14 February 2022.

Assessment of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) is undertaken on an annual basis to understand the key sources and contributions to PM2.5 in the UK, as well as to assess compliance with legally binding air quality standards.

Compliance in 2020 was detailed in the Air Pollution in the UK report (2020) published in Sept 2021 (available here: https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/library/annualreport/). Further analysis is ongoing and a follow up technical modelling report, detailing the source apportionment undertaken for 2020, will be published on our UK Air website in the coming weeks.