Zero-emission Buses and Air Quality in Sheffield

Debate between Jim Shannon and Paul Blomfield

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered zero emission buses and air quality in Sheffield.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I will start with the issue of air quality. We know its importance. Poor air quality contributes to the early deaths of up to 43,000 people every year in the UK, according to Asthma + Lung UK. Children are in the frontline, as it affects their health in childhood and throughout their life.

Living alongside a busy road carries the same risk as passively smoking 10 cigarettes a day, so the fact that nitrogen dioxide levels in Sheffield were above legal limits was a huge concern. Clearly we are not alone—we are one of 30 towns and cities exceeding the limit of 10 micrograms per cubic metre—but we were keen to act, and the Government were keen to support us, as a city, in acting.

The Government directed us to implement a clean air zone. We welcomed that instruction because we want a cleaner and healthier future for all who live in our city. Based on the national figures I mentioned, we know that air pollution contributes to around 250 to 500 deaths every year in Sheffield. It can permanently damage children’s lungs and cause strokes, lung cancer and cardiovascular disease.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Member for securing the debate. The motion refers to zero emission buses: such buses, manufactured in Northern Ireland by Wrightbus, were launched in Oxford only two weeks ago. The fleet of 21 StreetDeck Electroliners, the world’s first efficient, double-decker electric buses, was launched as part of the contribution to net zero. Does the hon. Member agree that there is scope for Northern Ireland to pave the way across the United Kingdom in terms of electric bus contracts? For Sheffield, they are the answer to all his prayers.

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I thought that on this occasion I had secured a Westminster Hall debate on which he could not find an angle, but I was obviously mistaken. He is right, and I hope that Sheffield, with the support of the Government, can pave the way alongside Northern Ireland on this issue.

Older polluting vehicles are a major source of the problems. We worked in partnership with the Government to deliver a solution, encouraging owners of commercial vehicles to replace them with compliant vehicles. It is not easy, and we would have welcomed additional support, particularly to help taxi drivers to transition to cleaner vehicles, but buses are the key. Several of our air quality hotspots in Sheffield are primarily influenced by buses. We have a fleet of about 400 and they are older than in most cities, with an average age of about 12 years.

We worked with the Government to tackle emissions, and the approach that they suggested to us, to which we were happy to respond, was to retrofit the fleet. Before the introduction of our clean air zone, the Government awarded the council cash through the clean bus technology fund. The project ran in two phases from 2018 to 2022. It delivered 292 vehicle retrofits using selective catalytic reduction technology, with the expectation that the emissions of those vehicles would then be equivalent to Euro 6 standards. Buses operating on high-frequency services on routes where air quality levels were being breached were prioritised throughout the project.

When the clean air zone was introduced, 94 buses operating in Sheffield were older than Euro 6 and had therefore not been retrofitted. In the discussions between the council and the Joint Air Quality Unit on the clean air zone, run by the Department for Transport and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, it was agreed that there would be clean air funding to provide sufficient support for further retrofit devices to be installed in the remaining non-compliant fleet.

Our clean air zone assessment forecast that all our buses would be retrofitted to a minimum Euro 6 standard and would deliver the significant reductions in nitrogen dioxide emissions that we needed, and so we were, in partnership with the Government, on course—until the Government hit a problem. After the launch of the clean air zone in late spring, the DFT informed the council that it had undertaken some initial studies on the real-world performance of the bus retrofit devices that it had required us to install.

The broad conclusion was that the performance of the retrofitted buses showed considerable variability, and that many were not performing at the expected equivalent Euro 6 standard. As a result, the Government paused new funding for selective catalytic reduction exhaust retrofitting and recommended that no further retrofit purchases be made until the research was completed. The DFT did not propose any changes to the clean air zone compliance status of the buses that had already been retrofitted while it carried out the further studies, and the council provided local exemptions from charges for the buses whose planned retrofit work could not proceed.

As a result of the initial study, the DFT commissioned further research and evaluation, which I understand it is on the brink of completing. The council was informed that the expected duration of the study was about six months, so I am guessing, given the timeline, that a formal position from the DFT should be imminent. From discussions with the Joint Air Quality Unit, the council understands that the main problem with the retrofit devices running in urban areas is that they do not reach the required temperatures to treat emissions as a result of the regular stop-start conditions. That happens significantly when buses run downhill, and anybody who knows Sheffield knows that there are a lot of hills to run down.

Jack Ritchie: Gambling Act Review

Debate between Jim Shannon and Paul Blomfield

Monday 21st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I am grateful to have been granted this debate.

Jack Ritchie was a constituent of mine; an outgoing young man, popular and bright, with lots of friends; a teacher, just starting his career, with everything to look forward to. But in 2017, at the age of 24, he took his life, driven by his addiction to gambling.

I did not know Jack, but I have come to know his story because of his inspirational parents, Liz and Charles, who are with us in the Gallery this evening. They have made it their mission to stop gambling addiction claiming the lives of others, as it does too often—more than 400 people in England alone each year; around 8% of all suicides.

Jack became addicted at the age of 17 when he started playing fixed odds betting terminals at a local bookies with a group of friends in his school lunch hour. Sadly, he was soon hooked, and we know that it is an addiction that comes quickly. Jack moved to online gambling, with products licensed by the Government. When he recognised his addiction, he struggled to break it. He managed to stop for long periods. When he died, he had been pretty much free of gambling for more than a year and a half. He had not gambled at all for five months, but he slipped back on 19 November 2017 and took his life just three days later, after a single day of intense gambling. Although he had lost money through gambling, he died with hardly any debts and with money available in one of his bank accounts. Until I heard Jack’s story, I had always thought the financial consequences of gambling addiction pushed people to suicide, but I learnt that it was the addiction itself that does this; the clinically recognised impact it has on the brain destroys that sense of self. Jack felt that he had lost control of life and would never be free. He felt ashamed and he blamed himself, which is what the industry-promoted responsible gambling model seeks: putting blame for gambling disorder on the individual, convincing them it is their fault, their weakness and their problem to solve.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for holding this debate. Northern Ireland has the highest rate of gambling disorders in the whole UK, with some 2.3% of the adult population addicted. Gambling with Lives is a great charity set up to work with secondary school pupils by grieving parents in Fermanagh who lost their son to suicide. Such charities are wonderful, yet they do not negate the duty on this House to get this right, through the legislation.

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He makes a point I will be reflecting on throughout my contribution. I was saying that the industry promotes this idea of blame on the individual, but when the coroner looked at the evidence at Jack’s inquest he pointed the finger at us, saying:

“Jack didn't understand that being addicted to gambling wasn’t his fault.”

The coroner went on to blame a failure of diagnosis, of treatment and of regulation. That is hugely important, because it resets the approach we have to adopt. It finally moves us away from the vulnerable individuals model of regulation. I welcome the fact that a few days later the Minister recognised that, by saying that

“everyone is at risk of developing”

a gambling disorder.