Improving Air Quality

Debate between Andrew Selous and Neil Parish

Thursday 28th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Joint Report of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Environmental Audit, Health and Social Care and Transport Committees, Improving Air Quality, HC 433, and calls on the Government to adopt its recommendations as part of its Clean Air Strategy.

I very much back speakers on the previous motion in their points about contempt of Parliament when people refuse to give evidence to Select Committees.

I am grateful to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, to the Liaison Committee and to the Backbench Business Committee for granting time in this House to debate our report on improving air quality. I thank my fellow Chairs and members of the Health, Transport and Environmental Audit Committees for all their work and help; I also thank the many staff across all the Committees for helping put together the four-Committee report, which is a challenging task.

Last October, we launched a joint inquiry to consider the Government’s most recent plans for reducing levels of nitrogen dioxide. The cross-cutting inquiry examined whether the Government’s plans to cut air quality pollution were adequate. We have concluded that they are not. The UK has failed to meet our legal air quality limits since 2010, and successive Governments have failed to get a grip and improve our air quality. Air pollution is a silent killer. It is the largest environmental risk to public health, costing the UK an estimated £20 billion every year in health impacts. Air pollution affects everyone, from those driving their cars to those who walk or cycle to work—especially in the many hotspots in our inner cities.

I am not saying that the Government have failed to take any action. It is good to see that they have taken on board key recommendations in our joint report, including: consolidating the patchwork of air quality legislation; developing a personal air pollution alert system for the public; making better use of air quality data from local authorities; and making sure that those data are compatible with each other. I also very much welcome the commitments in the latest clean air strategy consultation to cut levels of particulate pollution.

Although those initial steps are welcome, they are not nearly enough. Real change requires bold, meaningful actions, which are absent from the Government’s current approach. In our report, we called for a properly resourced national support scheme to help councils struggling with air pollution. Such a scheme would require far greater cross-departmental working and joint planning—something that, as we highlighted, is severely lacking right now. In addition, we recommended a “polluter pays” clean air fund.

This is not a war on motorists. We envisioned that the fund would be paid for by the automobile industry. I do not want to punish those who bought diesel vehicles that had been recommended by previous Governments; they bought in good faith and will need time and support to rectify the mistakes and recommendations of those previous Governments. I urge the Government to re-examine their decision not to have a targeted diesel scrappage scheme.

Furthermore, we need significant efforts to speed up the roll-out of electric charging infrastructure, which must include more rapid charging points to accelerate the transition to low-emission vehicles across all our towns and cities. It is essential that people should be able not only to charge up their cars, but to do so quickly, otherwise we will not get enough people into electric cars. All that requires a new clean air Act to update and streamline existing legislation. The new legislation could also include measures to ensure that the Government are held to account on environmental issues once we have left the EU. A new clean air Act is absolutely essential, and I ask the Minister today to confirm the timescale for the introduction of such an Act.

I find it disappointing that the Government are not making the automobile industry pay for the damage it has caused. We have already been let down in this regard: when we did not get anywhere near enough compensation out of Volkswagen for the emissions scandal. I am amazed that the German Government were able to get €1 billion, while all we seem to have got are the zeros. The automobile industry has a yearly turnover of some £80 billion.

In recent tests, the majority of the latest 2017 diesel cars are almost four times above the EU’s baseline emissions limit.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I come back to my hon. Friend’s point about Volkswagen and Germany. Would it not be ironic and extremely unfortunate if the German car industry used that €1 billion to leapfrog into clean new-energy vehicles that put them at a competitive advantage, given that there has been no similar payment that could help the UK motor industry?

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend makes a really good point. I am amazed: do British lawyers lack teeth? Do Government lawyers lack any sort of drive and ambition? It is not just Volkswagen; others out there could also contribute. If we got funds from them, those could help towards producing cleaner vehicles or helping with air quality in our inner cities and hotspots across the country. It seems so ridiculous to lose that form of money and funding.

Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Environmental Audit Committee, Health and Social Care Committee and Transport Committee

Debate between Andrew Selous and Neil Parish

Thursday 22nd March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Neil Parish]

I thank the hon. Lady for her questions and, again, for her co-operation in putting the Joint Committee together. She will not be surprised to know that I very much agree with her points.

On the clean air Act, that is something we need the Government to come forward with, because it would concentrate not only resource but political drive on cleaning up our air. On the World Health Organisation’s targets, we need to be more ambitious than the Government are at the moment. On an environmental protection agency, we need to know more from the Government about how that would come about, how it would take on the role that the European Commission has had, and who could take the Government to court to hold them to account.

The car fleet is an interesting one. I expect that the hon. Lady, like me, has often come through Speaker’s Court and seen interesting vehicles waiting for Secretaries of State. The vehicles are all quite large, and as far as I can see very few have anything hybrid about them, so perhaps the Government could lead by example. It will be interesting to see what they do. This is a serious point, because as we get our new fleet of vehicles across all Departments, we need a series of electric vehicles and hybrids. For some places, all-electric will work. If people have to go longer distances, hybrids are essential. We look forward to working with all the other Select Committees to ensure that we deliver cleaner air.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I, too, pay tribute—I am sure I do so on behalf of the whole House—to PC Keith Palmer and the other victims of the terrorist attack a year ago today. I thank all the security staff who are on duty today, enabling our democracy to carry on functioning.

Does my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) agree that the list of illnesses caused by poor air quality is shockingly worrying? It includes, but is not limited to, respiratory illness, heart attack, hypertension, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, dementia, type 2 diabetes and obesity. It is quite a long list, and the public probably would not suspect that all those illnesses link back to poor air quality.

Does my hon. Friend also agree that car users, who are sometimes seen as the source of the problem, are actually very serious victims? One of the surprising things that we learnt from doing our report was that people who regularly travel in cars in cities are themselves among those worst affected by poor air quality. Parents driving children to school in cities need to understand what the health effects are on them and their children.

Does my hon. Friend share my concern at what is frankly the absence from the pitch of the healthcare sector in a lot of the debate? We need to see a lot more action from Public Health England and from GPs, informing the public about the risks and telling them what to do. If I go into my local surgery, I will see advice on how to reduce smoking, on how to drink less alcohol and on weight reduction, but despite looking very hard I will not find anything to tell me what I can do to avoid poor air quality and how to deal with that issue.

Does my hon. Friend agree that if the health sector and those responsible for public health put that information out in a way that is helpful and useful to the public, that will help to bring about an army of concerned citizens who will demand change, at both local and national level, to deal with the problem?

[Neil Parish]

I thank my hon. Friend for so ably representing the Health and Social Care Committee in our Joint Committee. He raises interesting points about the number of illnesses attributed to poor air quality. Of course, we were suddenly told to drive diesel vehicles because we needed to reduce carbon, ignoring the nitric oxide and the particulates. That is now hugely affecting our health. He talked about what is happening outside our schools and inside our cars—we are being affected by particulates even as we drive along.

My hon. Friend made a particular point about schools, and I think that this issue applies not just in the inner cities but everywhere. I say to parents, “When you come to pick up your children, please don’t leave your cars ticking over outside, with all the levels of pollution that causes.” That is really important across the whole country, not just in the hotspots of very poor air quality.

On the point about Public Health England, we do need much better and much more information about how poor air quality affects our health. That would also raise public awareness of what we are doing as we drive, how we drive and what we drive. It would bring those issues home to people as they make their choices in future.

During the inquiry, my hon. Friend was keen to ensure that our air quality monitoring systems, both in local government and the national systems, work together so that we can collate the figures, to ensure that we get better air quality, and really drill down to find the worst affected areas. Overall, we can all do more to reduce the amount of pollution we create. I thank him for his question.

New Housing Design

Debate between Andrew Selous and Neil Parish

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Westminster Hall

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered new housing design.

Good morning, Sir David. It is great to serve under your chairmanship. Britain needs more homes; I think we all agree on that. Rising house prices have made building more houses a social and economic imperative, so it is vital that we get the design and quality of these new homes right. I will make two points in my speech. I will argue that the majority of new homes should be built in a high-quality traditional design, so that they are popular with the public. Secondly, I will call for the creation of a new homes ombudsman, to give homebuyers redress for any problems with their new homes, to ensure the highest possible standards.

There was one policy in the Conservative election manifesto that I dare say I was delighted to recommend to everyone, unlike one or two others in the manifesto. We committed to building

“better houses, to match the quality of those we have inherited from previous generations. That means supporting high-quality, high-density housing like mansion blocks, mews houses and terraced streets.”

That commitment really stood out to me.

As someone who was a member of a planning committee for nearly 12 years, I know just how terrified some communities are of new development—not necessarily because people are nimbys but because they have seen how developments in the last 50 years have left communities with homes that are totally unsuitable for their area. That is backed by hard evidence. A recent survey of 2,000 British adults showed that a whopping 81% are unenthused about living in new build housing developments. What is more, 60% feel there are too many unattractive, poorly built new builds popping up across the country. Older properties and streetscapes in a traditional design are, on the whole, much more popular.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I agree with every word that my hon. Friend has said so far. Does he agree that it is possible to have attractive houses that have no net energy bills during the course of the year? That is not fantasy. The Building Research Establishment has proved that such houses can be built, and it has examples of them. Does he agree that we should go further down that route, to have not only attractive houses but houses that do not have energy bills?

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend makes a very interesting point. Houses need to be attractive not only architecturally; they are very attractive to live in if people will not have energy bills. That also, of course, reduces our commitment to produce energy as a country, so it makes our power stations and gas supply go a lot further. He makes a really good point that I very much endorse.

The survey showed that over two fifths of people feel that new build homes lack character and are an eyesore in the local community. Those are shocking statistics. We will never build support for new homes when people fear new housing designs. The latest research from the Department for Communities and Local Government shows that over half of households would be less opposed to new house building if they had more say over the design and layout of developments.

A separate poll for Ipsos MORI shows that design clearly influences public support for new build homes. When people were asked about their local area, housing designs in traditional form and style commanded about 75% support. Less traditional development styles commanded very low support, from about a fifth to a third of those polled. The message is clear: people want and are happy to accept new housing if it has the right design, and if developers take local people with them when producing new designs.

We cannot go back to the mistakes of the ’60s and ’70s, when ugly modernist designs were imposed on communities, damaging trust in new housing for a generation. Of course, some of those properties proved not really fit for purpose, and some have actually had to come down. I say to the Minister that this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity, and we only have one chance to get it right. We must build new housing in the right way, with designs and forms sympathetic to local areas.