Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 16 January 2019 to Question 206215 on Air Pollution, what the implications for his policies are of the statement in the Public Health England report, published in March 2017, entitled Air Quality A Briefing for Directors of Public Health that PM is inhaled into the lungs and ultrafine PM0.1 is thought to pass into the blood causing many adverse outcomes including systemic inflammation.

Public Health England (PHE) has developed a programme to support national and local government to reduce the burden of disease attributable to air pollution. This includes awareness raising, developing the evidence base on the health effects of air pollution and interventions aiming to reduce exposure to air pollution and provide wider public health benefits.

PHE undertakes various air quality research projects, working with academic partners, to review the evidence for the health effects of air pollutants. PHE is a partner in two health protection research units (HPRU) funded by the National Institute for Health Research, whose remit includes air pollution research: The Health impact of Environmental Hazards HPRU and the HPRU in Environmental Change and Health. Further information can be found at the following links:

http://hieh.hpru.nihr.ac.uk/

http://www.hpru-ech.nihr.ac.uk/

None of the research projects specifically focus on PM0.1 but address air pollution components which are included in this category.