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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to ensure compliance with (a) legal limits and (b) targets for (i) benzo[a]pyrene, (ii) nickel, (iii) nitrogen dioxide, (iv) ozone and (v) particulate matter.

We are delivering a wide range of actions to drive improvements to air quality:

• We introduced two new interim targets for fine particulate matter, which are set out in our Environmental Improvement Plan 2023.
• Delivering the NO₂ programme, which has ring-fenced £883m to work with local authorities to develop and implement measures to address NO₂ exceedances in the shortest possible time.
• Published an update report that sets out the measures taken by operators and regulators to achieve target values for benzo[a]pyrene and nickel in December 2023 at 2021 Reports on Measures - Defra, UK.
• Reducing the UK’s emissions of ozone precursor chemicals through the EIP and International engagement through the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP).

We continually measure ambient concentrations of a wide range of air pollutants, including ozone, nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide, particles, hydrocarbons, and metallic pollutants at over 500 urban, suburban, roadside, industrial and rural locations throughout the UK. In September 2023 we published the Air Pollution in the UK 2022 report providing the most comprehensive and complete analytical picture of the UK’s air pollution during 2022, at Air Pollution in the UK report - Defra, UK.