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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of air quality in Liverpool, Walton constituency; and what steps he is taking to improve air quality in northern cities.

Local authorities have a duty under the Environment Act 1995 to review and assess air quality for a range of pollutants in their areas. If a local authority finds any places that are not likely to achieve national air quality objectives it must declare an Air Quality Management Area (AQMA) and to draw up an action plan detailing remedial measures to address the problem. In the case of Liverpool it has declared the whole city as an AQMA and expects to meet the annual mean for nitrogen dioxide by 2020. In November 2016 I met Councillor Ann O’Byrne, Deputy Mayor of Liverpool City Council and Steve Rotheram the then MP for Liverpool, Walton and now Mayor of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority to discuss air quality in the City. In February 2017 I also met Dr Jon Lamonte, Chief Executive of Transport for Greater Manchester, which has responsibility for air quality on behalf of the Combined Authority, to discuss air quality there. In 2016 Manchester amended the individual borough AQMAs into a single one for the Combined Authority.

Defra publishes the latest information covering local authorities in the ‘Air Pollution in the UK’ report published on our website and available here: https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/library/annualreport/. Air quality reports of the local authorities are based on 43 areas within the UK (termed zones and agglomerations) and Walton is contained in the agglomeration Liverpool Urban Area UK0006.

We will also be publishing the final Air Quality Plan for nitrogen dioxide by 31 July, which will include next steps for cities across the United Kingdom where exceedances exist.