Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, on how many occasions a representative from the Local Government Association has discussed air quality with the Government at the Central Local Information Partnership in each of the last 8 years.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is the secretariat for the Environment subgroup of the Central Local Information Partnership. The focus of the subgroup is to ensure that data provided by local authorities to central government is provided in the most efficient and least burdensome manner.

The Department’s records consist of subgroup meeting correspondence from the past five years. These records indicate there have been no specific agenda items tabled or discussions held on air quality at the subgroup’s meetings, which cover a wide range of environmental data collections. There was out-of-meeting correspondence in October 2013 in which the reporting of the European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register was discussed. Air quality is one component of this environmental reporting tool.