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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether (a) Greater Manchester Combined Authority or (b) any other councils within that Combined Authority (i) applied for and (ii) secured funding through the Air Quality Grant scheme 2022-23.

Defra did not receive or accept any applications from Greater Manchester Combined Authority or any councils within the combined authority as part of the Air Quality Grant scheme 2022-23.

79 applications were received from councils for this year’s scheme. 44 applicants were provided with funding totalling £10.7 million, which is helping them to develop and implement measures to benefit schools, businesses and communities and reduce the impact of air pollution on people’s health. Examples include supporting programmes that will educate doctors, nurses and social care workers about air quality; support for an e-cargo bike library helping local businesses in Norfolk to cut operating costs while lowering their emissions; and data collection to develop and deliver a traffic management plan that will reduce congestion and improve traffic flow across Derbyshire.

The air quality grant scheme sits alongside a further£883 million made available as part of the government’s NO2 Plan to support local authorities in cleaning up transport and cutting levels of nitrogen dioxide down to legal levels in the shortest possible time.

Under the 2017 UK Plan for Tackling Roadside Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) Concentrations, Greater Manchester authorities are required to take urgent action to address NO2 pollution and develop plans to bring levels to within legal limits in the shortest possible time.

Greater Manchester’s review in July 2022 identified they would not be fully compliant with legal limits before 2027 without action, with 79 points of exceedance predicted in 2023. We have reviewed Greater Manchester’s proposals and identified a number of gaps in the evidence, meaning it is not yet possible to understand how the proposed approach will achieve compliance with NO2 limits in the shortest possible time. We have requested further evidence from the Greater Manchester authorities to enable us to consider the plans further.