Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to improve indoor air quality; and what assessment he has made of the main risks of poor indoor air quality to health.

There is ongoing collaborative work across Government on both outdoor and indoor air quality. In 2019 the Department asked the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence to develop guidance on indoor air pollution. The guidelines, published in January 2020, were deigned to raise awareness of the importance of good air quality in people's homes and how to achieve this and focused on interventions to change the structure of, ventilation of, and materials used in new and existing homes. The guidelines are available at the following link:

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng149

The Department is leading a review of existing guidance on the health impacts of damp and mould in homes and will develop new consolidated guidance tailored to the rented housing sector.

The Chief Medical Officer’s annual report 2022 focused on air pollution and includes an assessment of the evidence on health risks associated with poor indoor air quality. The report is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/chief-medical-officers-annual-report-2022-air-pollution