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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will remove coal from the proposed regulation of the sales, distribution and marketing of house coal and wet wood.

The Government is committed to protecting human health, and the environment from the impacts of air pollutants. Based on the advice from the World Health Organization that emissions from coal combustion is a known human carcinogen, and that it should not be used for residential heating, we intend to continue including bituminous (house) coal in the proposed regulation of the sales, distribution and marketing of bituminous (house) coal and wet wood.