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 number of premature deaths per year attributable to air pollution from diesel-fuelled vehicles; and what discussions he has had with the Royal Colleges about ways of reducing such deaths.

My Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State has had no discussions with the Royal Colleges on actions to reduce the health impacts of air pollution. The actions the Government is taking to reduce the health impacts of air pollution have been given in a previous reply to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) on 28 April 2014, Official Reply, columns 474-75W.

In 2010, the Department's expert advisory Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants published an estimate of the mortality effect in 2008 of long term exposure to particulate air pollution arising from human activities. The mortality burden for the United Kingdom was estimated as an effect equivalent to nearly 29,000 deaths. Whilst this includes mortality attributable to particulate matter arising from diesel engines, separate figures for the impact of diesel-fuelled vehicles have not been produced by the Department.