Traffic-related Air Pollution

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Wednesday 21st December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely right that pollutants blow in from abroad, and we have to work with our neighbours to ensure that an outcome to that issue is achieved. I have just come back from Montreal, where we have negotiated a landmark international agreement which will, if properly implemented, have effects on people right across the world and improve the ability of nature to protect us and our health.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, one of the options in setting standards for the rest of the world is to enact them here. As the Minister knows, my Clean Air (Human Rights) Bill has just completed its passage through your Lordships’ House and has gone to the other place. Will he recommend it to his Defra colleagues as a much more ambitious and achievable piece of policy on clean air that they could take up immediately?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Baroness’s ambitions in the Bill are understood and supported by the Government, but it needs to be seen in conjunction with what we are doing with our commitment through the 25-year environment plan, how we will implement that through the Environment Act, and the targets that we have announced which will be put in the environmental improvement plan. We are also working with local authorities and trying to get industry to innovate, and we have created stretching targets for our vehicle industry by moving to electric vehicles. That all needs to be brought together in a holistic government action which will improve people’s health.