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 help improve the monitoring and reporting of air pollution.

In 2021/22 we invested £1 million to expand our fine particulate matter (PM2.5) monitoring network, and will have at least doubled the size of the current network by the end of 2025. We are also investing £1.5 million during 2022/23 to establish two new multi-instrument particulate matter (PM) composition measurement sites to monitor PM2.5 mass, particle speciation, particle counting, black carbon and ammonia. While expert advice is that PM2.5 mass is the most effective metric for measuring harm to health from PM, these monitors will provide new data on the composition of PM, helping us to better understand how composition changes across the country and how composition relates to health impacts, which remain a scientific challenge.

Defra, the UK Health Security Agency and the Department of Health and Social Care are also conducting a holistic review of the way we communicate air quality information and advice to the public. The outcomes will ensure the public is provided with timely and relevant information about air pollution: the actions people can take to limit their personal exposure; the impacts of air pollution on their health; and their own influence on air quality. Alongside this review a major overhaul of the UK-Air website and other Air Quality Web services is underway. This will deliver a simplified holistic service for all users. The department’s aim is to complete the whole web system review and have a clear vision for future web service provision by March 2025, with improvements being made in the interim.