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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 8 May 2014, if she will make an estimate of social costs caused by (a) large particulates (PM10), (b) small particulates (PM2.5) and (c) nitrogen dioxide emitted to air in the UK by (i) domestic biomass generation of heat and (ii) biomass for power generation in the latest year for which figures are available.

I refer the hon. Member to the reply previously given on 9 June 2014, Official Report, column 272W. Social costs caused by air pollution are not routinely assessed. The 2010 Defra report ‘Valuing the impacts of air pollution’ estimated that the overall health impact from anthropogenic PM_2.5 is £16bn per year (with a range of £9-19bn). The social costs of biomass heat have been assessed for specific policy development purposes in the past.