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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has made an assessment of the effect on public health of the delays in (a) implementing local Clean Air Zones and (b) achieving compliance with legal limits on air pollution.

Air pollution poses one of the biggest environmental threats to public health. Our ambitious plans to decarbonise transport, improve air quality and support more active forms of travel have not changed, including the £3.8 billion we are already investing to clean up our air.

The 2017 UK Plan for Tackling Roadside Nitrogen Dioxide (NO₂) Concentrations sets out how we will achieve compliance with legal NO₂ limits in the shortest possible time. We are continuing to work closely with those local authorities identified to assist them in developing local plans to tackle NO₂ exceedances. These plans can include charging Clean Air Zones (CAZ) although other measures that are at least as effective are preferred. We rigorously assess local plans to make sure they will deliver reductions in NO₂ levels in the shortest possible time.

To help them focus on their response to coronavirus, we agreed with Leeds and Birmingham’s requests to delay the introduction of CAZ until after January 2021. However, CAZ development work is continuing, and we are working to deliver compliance as soon as possible. Our recent rapid call for evidence will ensure we can fully understand the impact that coronavirus is having on changes in air pollution emissions, concentrations and exposure. Recent Automatic Urban and Rural Network provisional NO₂ data from 23 March to 15 June shows that average NO₂ levels decreased by 45%. It is not clear that these reductions will be maintained long term. Improving air quality as soon as possible remains vital and we continue to engage with local authorities and keep plans for all CAZ under constant review.