Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate his Department has made of the total number of premature deaths attributable to air pollution in the last 12 months; and if he will make a statement.

There is no estimate of the total number of premature deaths attributable to air pollution.

The air pollution health indicator 3.01 in the Public Health Outcomes Framework estimates the fraction of adult mortality attributable to long-term exposure to PM2.5 air pollution (in local authority areas) in England. This ranges from less than 3% in the least polluted rural areas to over 7% in some London boroughs.

In 2015, the average for England was 4.7%. This is equivalent to approximately 25,000 adult deaths attributable to fine particulate matter exposure (PM2.5) in England every year.