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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment she has made of the impact of clean air zones in Portsmouth on health outcomes for local people.

Government has a robust evaluation programme for the collection and analysis of air quality, traffic and behavioural data from Local Authority areas implementing measures for the reduction of nitrogen dioxide. The programme and collection of data is at too early a stage to draw definitive conclusions about the impact of Clean Air Zones on health. The findings of the evaluation programme for Portsmouth are expected to be published in the next evaluation Annual Report.

The Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollution (COMEAP), an expert committee of the Department of Health and Social Care, estimated that long-term exposure to man-made pollution in the UK has an annual effect equivalent to 28,000 to 43,000 deaths. The Office for Health Improvement & Disparities has also estimated the fraction of adult mortality attributable to long-term exposure to particulate air pollution at local authority level in the Public Health Outcomes Framework, available to view and search online at: https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile/public-health-outcomes-framework.