Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department's Clean Air Strategy will include meeting the World Health Organisation’s limit for fine particular matter PM2.5.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
Our recently published draft Clean Air Strategy stated that although the UK is compliant with the current EU limit values for particulate matter, the Government is committed to reducing concentrations further. In doing so we will halve the number of people living in locations where PM2.5 levels exceed World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines by 2025.We are the first major developed economy to adopt goals based on WHO guidelines, going far beyond EU requirements. The WHO have welcomed our Clean Air Strategy.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department's Clean Air Strategy will include steps to increase levels of travel by (a) walking, (b) cycling, and (c) public transport.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
The Clean Air Strategy consultation set out the approach we are taking to reduce emissions from transport, which includes encouraging walking, cycling and use of public transport. We are currently assessing the responses to the consultation.
The Government has already committed to significant investment through the £1.7 billion Transforming Cities Fund which aims to reduce congestion and increase productivity through improved connectivity and public transport in major cities. We are also implementing the Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy, which identifies up to £1.2 billion that may be invested in cycling and walking from 2016-21 to double the level of cycling by 2025 and to reverse the decline in walking.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether the Joint Air Quality Unit plans to publish the steps that local authorities are taking to tackle (a) air pollution and (b) congestion.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
On 5 October the Government published a supplement to the 2017 UK Plan for Tackling Roadside Nitrogen Dioxide Emissions, along with 33 local feasibility studies developed by local authorities initially identified as having shorter term NO2 exceedances. These set out the work carried out by local authorities to identify measures to bring forward compliance with legal NO2 limits, and the next steps the Government has directed them to take where they have identified measures.
28 local authorities were directed in 2017 to develop plans to tackle air pollution by the end of 2018 – The Government expects local authorities will make their plans public once they are completed and several local authorities have already conducted public consultations and engagement on their plans.