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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent estimate her Department has made of the national annual mortality burden of nitrogen dioxide.

The Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants (COMEAP) is currently considering how to quantify the association between long-term average concentrations of ambient nitrogen dioxide and mortality in the UK and intends to publish its views in due course.

A COMEAP working group has provided interim recommendations to Defra on methods for use in quantifying health benefits associated with reductions in nitrogen dioxide. We are considering these as part of the evidence base being used to develop the plans to bring the UK into compliance with EU limits for nitrogen dioxide.