Air Pollution

Martin Rhodes Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2026 Westminster Hall

[Martin Rhodes (Glasgow North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) on securing this important debate.

Clean air is not simply an issue about health and the environment, but a moral imperative of our time. It is a challenge that requires urgency, with current legislation and frameworks lagging behind the science, alongside more joined-up thinking and action across agencies, Government Departments and devolved Administrations. I hope that the Minister can say something about the work that his Department is doing with others to take the issue forward.

Clean air is an environmental, health and social justice issue. Poor air quality is an environmental challenge. Many of our wild plants and much of our natural environment cannot tolerate high pollution levels, which can devastate grasslands, peatlands and moorlands, leading to a loss of pollinators and significantly harming biodiversity. That matters on a bigger scale, because the ecosystems that we depend on for air, water and a liveable planet are being damaged.

Poor air quality is a public health issue. It shortens lives and contributes to between 30,000 and 40,000 premature deaths every year. It increases the risk of diseases such as dementia, lung cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. It affects all of us, but particularly the young, the old, pregnant women and their unborn children.

That brings me to air quality as a social justice issue. Clean air is an equity issue: those more likely to have underlying conditions are also more likely to live in environments that worsen them. The areas most exposed to pollution are often the poorest, where proximity to traffic and poor housing often go hand in hand.

That is why tackling the root causes is essential. Interventions can make a real difference. Air pollution was once widely associated with transport, but strategies—most notably, the shift away from diesel and the uptake of electric vehicles—have reduced transport’s impact. Alongside national action, local strategies matter. As has been mentioned, London’s ULEZ reduced NO₂ levels by 40% before lockdown, and, since the clean air zone was introduced in Bradford, it is reported that GP visits for cardiovascular and respiratory problems have reduced by 25%.

However, success in one area should not obscure challenges elsewhere. Wood burning affects air quality inside homes. There must be a focus on air quality indoors, where we spend up to 80% to 90% of our time, as much as a focus on air quality outdoors and on how we protect buildings such as schools, hospitals and community facilities. Yes, we need more ambitious targets and a stronger framework, but, just as importantly, we must secure buy-in from local communities. Although national targets set direction, local needs are best addressed locally. That means empowering not only local authorities, important though that is, but communities themselves.

Clean air cannot be delivered from the top down alone; alongside funding, we need expertise and partnerships so that residents, schools and community organisations can lead change. Community-led initiatives, such as local monitoring, clean transport and neighbourhood campaigns, would make the pollution issue visible, and give people a real stake in improving it. I hope that the Minister can say something about the involvement of communities in taking forward the important measures that are required.

Public engagement must be at the heart of our efforts. Clean air should be seen as essential to everyday health. By raising awareness, and giving people the opportunity to shape solutions, we can turn an invisible scourge into a shared priority. With national ambition and local action, we can become a world leader in air quality again.

Environmental Protection and Biodiversity

Martin Rhodes Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Martin Rhodes (Glasgow North) (Lab)]

Thank you, Sir Roger. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff) on securing this debate. Much of his speech focused on England and on rural areas. As the Member for Glasgow North, I hope to open up the debate slightly, in terms of crossing the border into Scotland, the rest of the UK and the world, and also into urban as well as rural.

Often, there is a focus on climate rather than nature based solutions to help mitigate and adapt to the environmental crisis that we face. Many argue that the protection of nature is hampering economic development. Not only are they compatible but, more fundamentally, the decline of nature will undermine economic development. Wetlands protect us from flooding; mangroves protect us from storm surges; and peatlands store carbon and regulate water flow. This is our natural infrastructure. They are essential not only in tackling climate change but in limiting damage to built infrastructure, reducing insurance costs and strengthening economic resilience.

In 2022, parties to the United Nations convention on biological diversity signed the global biodiversity framework. This landmark agreement, among other ambitions, seeks to conserve 30% of land and waters by 2030—“30 by 30”, as it is commonly known. However, much more needs to be done if we are to achieve those ambitions. Analysis from the Natural History Museum reveals that we are not sufficiently protecting the most critical ecosystems upon which global biodiversity—and indeed humanity—relies. In areas delivering the most vital ecosystem services, biodiversity is decreasing faster.

I thank my hon. Friend again for securing this debate. Nature has an essential role to play, helping us to mitigate and adapt. Our national and international commitments can enable us to progress towards other biodiversity targets, including those focused on restoration, resilience building and nature’s contribution to people and the economy more broadly. We must continue to champion this cause.

Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill

Martin Rhodes Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 16th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Martin Rhodes (Glasgow North) (Lab)]

I welcome the Bill for what it seeks to put into law, but also for what it signals about the approach of the Government, and hopefully this House, to national and international obligations and interests. It is a testament to the continued survival and delivery of multilateralism in global affairs. In an age of continued and heightened global strife, conflict and antagonism, the Bill is proof that there still remains hope for global co-operation and that joint endeavours with shared purpose can deliver common goods. Institutions such as the United Nations can still be practical and effective forums to facilitate states coming together to work out collective solutions to collective problems. There are those who seek to withdraw from international agreements, seeing multilateral institutions and processes as threats. We must eschew such an approach, because it ultimately does not serve our national or global interests. Such an approach of withdrawal and isolation will not further our interests effectively.

In this case, the United Nations biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction agreement, which the Bill will bring into the framework of UK law, will be one of the most important strides forward for biodiversity and the marine environment. For the first time, the United Kingdom will have a legal framework to help us to protect large expanses of the seas that are beyond our national waters. The establishment of such protections will help to ensure that regions of the high seas are safeguarded from harmful extractive and destructive practices. The protections will help to restore biodiversity to these regions and help maintain the ocean’s capacity to absorb CO2 produced by human activity, thus helping to mitigate the impacts of global warming.

As has been mentioned, the oceans absorb about 30% of man-made CO2, and this treaty will help to ensure that they are fit to continue doing so. The ratification of the treaty must not be the be all and end all for protecting the biodiversity of the world’s oceans. It must be a means through which the UK and allies globally can continue to advocate for greater protection of our shared marine environment. One means of doing that through the treaty will be the first conference of the parties—or Ocean COP1. This will be the first forum for the treaty’s signatories to discuss and action its implementation, such as agreeing proposals for the first generation of high seas sanctuaries. The treaty is welcome and the Bill is welcome, but implementation is necessary to deliver what we need.

As the Minister said in her opening comments, the COP will take place within a year of 17 January 2026, which is when the treaty comes into force. As has been said, if the UK has failed to ratify at least 40 days before that date, we will not have a seat at the first COP. That is why I urge the House to pass this legislation at pace. Already, there are reports that the first Ocean COP could be as soon as August next year. The Government have rightly spoken at length about the importance of the UK bringing its soft power to bear. With this being the first COP of its kind, it is essential that we bring UK expertise and influence to the event while the treaty is in its infancy. We have seen the importance of conferences of the parties as a means of promoting collective action on climate change and nature. We cannot miss this chance to be a part of the first Ocean COP to do the same for our world’s oceans. Multilateral agreements implemented by collective action are the way forward on this issue. I am therefore more than content to support the Bill enthusiastically today.