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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the levels of toxic air in Yorkshire and Humberside.

In accordance with the Air Quality Standards Regulations (AQSR) (2010) Defra undertakes an annual assessment of air pollutants based on monitoring and supplementary modelling for all regions of the UK, including Yorkshire and Humberside. This includes an assessment of trends and spatial distribution, together with information on any pollution events during the year. The latest report is accessible through the following URL:

https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/library/annualreport/viewonline?year=2020_issue_1#report_pdf

Defra’s national air pollution monitoring network, the Automatic Urban and Rural Network, measures air pollutant concentrations at 171 sites across the UK and this information is communicated to the public in near real-time and further used to assess compliance with the AQSR (2010). This includes 15 monitoring sites in Yorkshire and Humberside, with data accessible through the following URL:

https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/interactive-map