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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 11 April 2011 to Question HL14975, what the timeframe is for his Department to conclude its consideration of the UNICEF report entitled Healthy Air for Healthy Children; whether he plans to publish a response to that report; and what steps he is taking to ensure that personal air quality (a) monitors and (b) messaging systems will be made available to inform the public.

The Department is aware of the Healthy Air for Healthy Children report. There are no plans to formally review the methodology and conclusions nor publish a response to the report.

Through the Air Quality Grant more than £3 million of government funding has been awarded to 28 innovative projects to improve air quality across local authorities in England. This includes funding to trial new technology to test the effectiveness of low-cost sensors to better understand the air quality data they produce.

Air Quality forecasts and information are already published on the Defra UKAIR website. We are undertaking further work to understand the range of different audiences for air quality information, the differing requirements of those audiences, and how air quality information needs to be tailored to meet those different audiences’ needs.