Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she has taken steps to facilitate cross-departmental collaboration on tackling air pollution.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Yes, the Secretary of State is working across Government to tackle air pollution. We will shortly be publishing our response to the consultation on environmental targets, which included proposals for targets on air quality and how they will be achieved.
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of Government funding for local authorities on improving air quality.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
To enable local authorities to perform their statutory functions in local air quality management, Defra run an annual air quality grant whereby local authorities can bid for funding to take forward air quality initiatives in their area. Through this grant we have awarded more than £42 million across almost 500 projects since 2010, and this year will award at least £7m.
As part of our NO2 programme, we also manage a budget of £883m, held jointly across DfT and Defra.
Funding provided to local authorities is split between Implementation funding and our Clean Air Fund. To date (June 2022) the programme has spent £237m on implementation funding for air quality measures and £284m through its Clean Air Fund.
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of launching a public awareness campaign on the health impacts and causes of air pollution.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Defra is currently conducting a holistic review of the way we communicate air quality information to the public. This will ensure the public is provided with timely and relevant information about air pollution, the actions people can take to limit their personal exposure, the impacts of air pollution on their health, and their own influence on air quality. A steering group comprised of external experts have been appointed to advise on the scope and nature of the review.
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help ensure that local authorities adopt targets on air quality in line with the Environment Act 2021.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Local Authorities have powers to tackle pollutant emissions from a number of local sources, including domestic burning, environmental permitting and through the planning system. We are considering how Local Authorities can contribute to meeting our national PM2.5 objectives, including targets set under the Environment Act 2021. We will consult on further guidance for local authorities in our forthcoming draft Air Quality Strategy, which we are currently reviewing.
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to support and empower local authorities to meet World Health Organisation guidelines on air quality.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
HM Government provides a range of resources and tools to local authorities to enable them to manage air quality in their area. This includes the Air Quality Grant programme, which has provided over £80 million in funding since 1997, new Local Air Quality Management policy and technical guidance, and a strengthened framework including better enforcement of smoke control areas.
We are reviewing our Air Quality Strategy, which supports local authorities to deliver improvements in air quality, and will publish a draft for consultation soon.
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to improve the (a) monitoring and (b) reporting of air pollution.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
In 2021/22 we invested £1 million to expand our fine particulate matter (PM2.5) monitoring network, and will have at least doubled the size of the current network by the end of 2025. We are also investing £1.5 million during 2022/23 to establish two new multi-instrument particulate matter (PM) composition measurement sites to monitor PM2.5 mass, particle speciation, particle counting, black carbon and ammonia. While expert advice is that PM2.5 mass is the most effective metric for measuring harm to health from PM, these monitors will provide new data on the composition of PM, helping us to better understand how composition changes across the country and how composition relates to health impacts, which remain a scientific challenge.
Defra, the UK Health Security Agency and the Department of Health and Social Care are also conducting a holistic review of the way we communicate air quality information and advice to the public. The outcomes will ensure the public is provided with timely and relevant information about air pollution: the actions people can take to limit their personal exposure; the impacts of air pollution on their health; and their own influence on air quality. Alongside this review a major overhaul of the UK-Air website and other Air Quality Web services is underway. This will deliver a simplified holistic service for all users. The department’s aim is to complete the whole web system review and have a clear vision for future web service provision by March 2025, with improvements being made in the interim.
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the role of improved air quality in achieving net zero goals.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Climate change and air pollution have many of the same emission sources. Driving innovative solutions to improve air quality across a range of sectors will have some co-benefits for delivering net zero. We are working closely with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Department for Transport to assess the impact on greenhouse gas emissions of air quality driven policies, as published in our impact assessments. We are also reviewing the greenhouse gas impact of our policy proposals to meet our legal commitments to reduce air pollution.
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate he has made of the number of facilities in the UK that safely recycle disposable electronic cigarettes.
Answered by Jo Churchill
77 Approved Authorised Treatment Facilities (AATFs) are approved under the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations for the treatment of Small Mixed WEEE which would include electronic cigarettes. It is a matter for the operator to decide what specific categories of equipment they choose to treat under the terms of their approval.
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an estimate of the proportion of disposable electronic cigarettes that are properly recycled in the latest period for which data is available.
Answered by Jo Churchill
Neither Defra nor the Environment Agency collect data on the proportion of disposable electronic cigarettes that are recycled.
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
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 support village halls.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Village halls are at the heart of our rural communities, so I am delighted that we have announced our Platinum Jubilee Village Hall Improvement Grant Fund. We will be spending £3 million to support the modernisation and improvement of village halls across England – to ensure that they are fit for the future and our children and grandchildren can continue to enjoy them.