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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps the Government is taking to protect outdoor workers from ambient air pollution in Scunthorpe; which locations have been found to have fine-particle air pollution levels that exceed the WHO limit of 10 micrograms per cubic metre in the most recent period for which figures are available.

Local authorities are required to work towards reducing emissions of PM2.5. North East Lincolnshire Council reported in its 2018 Air Quality Annual Status Report (ASR) that their PM2.5 monitors did not record a breach of the statutory limit value, which is 25 micrograms per metre cubed.

The council also stated that it is running campaigns to discourage waste burning and bonfires, and implementing environmental permit improvement programmes to address PM2.5. In 2018 Defra awarded North East Lincolnshire Council grant funding to help reduce emissions of PM2.5 resulting from the use of domestic wood burning stoves.

With specific regard to Scunthorpe, a recent report published on the Government’s UK Air website detailed the extensive measures undertaken to reduce the impacts from the steelworks in the area (particularly aimed at reducing concentrations of benzo[a]pyrene and the impact of PM2.5). The report can be found here: https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/assets/documents/reports/bap-nickel-measures/bap_yorkshireandhumberside_UK0034_reportonmeasures_2016.pdf