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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to ensure local authorities meet statutory air quality targets.

The Government is firmly committed to improving the UK's air quality and cutting harmful emissions and works with the Devolved Administrations to deliver this. I recently wrote to 230 local authorities across England that have longstanding air quality challenges to highlight the need for further action and to better understand the issues they were facing, to ensure they are working towards meeting their air quality targets.

Defra provides statutory policy and technical guidance for local authorities in England to enable them to fulfil their air quality management duties. Defra provides technical support to local authorities via a dedicated local air quality management Helpdesk (accessible via phone, email and online). Defra provides calculation tools to support local authorities in their monitoring and modelling efforts.

On 1 March, Defra in partnership with Public Health England, released an updated air Quality Toolkit for Directors of Public designed to help local authorities take action to improve air quality.