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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he has taken to (a) improve air quality and (b) reduce air pollution in York.

The Government is committed to improving air quality in the UK. Air quality has improved significantly over recent decades, and will continue to improve, thanks to actions we have already taken. Between 2010 and 2016, emissions of nitrogen oxides fell by 27%. However, more still needs to be done.

That is why the Government is taking action which includes the UK plan for tackling roadside nitrogen dioxide concentrations and £3.5 billion of investment in air quality and cleaner transport. The Government has also committed £2.84 million from the Clean Bus Technology Fund 2017-19 to enable West Yorkshire Combined Authority to retrofit buses with technology to reduce tailpipe emissions of nitrogen dioxide.

Alongside national action, local authorities have a crucial role to play in improving air quality in their areas. They have a statutory duty to review and assess air quality, to declare air quality management areas (AQMAs) and to put in place action plans where air quality objectives are not being met. The City of York Council has declared three AQMAs to target pollution hotspots, and adopted an action plan in 2015 covering all three AQMAs.

The Council was one of 230 English local authorities with longstanding air quality challenges that I wrote to in November 2016 to better understand the circumstances they face and to press the need for further action. The councils are taking a range of actions to improve air quality, including development of an overarching Low Emission Strategy designed to reduce emissions from all sources.

Since 2006 a total of £598,078 in air quality grant funding has been awarded to the City of York Council (of which £216,008 was awarded in this year’s round) to support projects aimed at improving air quality in its area. The Government’s Air Quality Grant fund is a bid-in scheme to support local authorities to improve air quality.

The Government also provides guidance and technical support to local authorities via a dedicated local air quality management helpdesk.