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10.8 am
Ms Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford): First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Luton, South (Sir G. Bright) on securing the debate. I sympathise with him because of his asthmatic condition. I know from what many of my constituents have told me how distressing a condition it is. As we have heard from the hon. Gentleman, at times it can be life-threatening.
Particulate matter pervades all our environments. In towns and cities, it is most obvious when it is close at hand, in the form of the noxious black smoke that emanates from road vehicles. Many industrial processes, while cleaner today than perhaps ever before, still add to the burden of particulates. Less well known, and not referred to in the debate so far, are the hazards faced by those in rural areas, whose immediate environments may be idyllic. They may be overshadowed, however, by a giant mining or quarrying operation.
Road transport is the greatest single contributor to particulate emissions, but nearly three quarters of total particulate emissions are calculated to come from other sources, spanning both industrial and domestic sectors. As particulates come from so many sources, the starting point for tackling the problem must be to recognise that a holistic approach is required. Such an approach can never be successfully fostered, however, by a Government who are bent on deregulation, privatisation and the awarding of fat cat profits at the expense of public service.
Any meaningful approach to tackling air pollution must encompass the need for national transport and energy policies that are consistent with sustainable development. That is the challenge to which, sadly, the Government cannot rise. It is an issue to which I shall return.
For the moment, let us consider where consensus lies. Particulates have been produced by human economic activity for many centuries. What is new is our knowledge of the range and type, and, more specifically, of the health effects. As the hon. Member for Luton, South said, size appears to be the key to particulates and predictable adverse health effects.
Tiny particles known as PM10s reach deep into the lung and can enter the bloodstream. Research undertaken by Dr. Joel Schwartz of the Harvard school of public health led to a strong statistical association between PM10 levels and daily death rates. He estimates that, in the United States, 60,000 to 70,000 early deaths a year are the result of average current concentrations of particulate air pollution, reducing life expectancy as a consequence by several years on average.
It is interesting to note that a new five-year study in London has recently found that more people die when ozone and particulate levels in air are high. The report confirms the results of earlier research, and suggests that
there is a need for the Government to curb the impact of traffic pollution on urban air quality. The current edition of The Ends Report notes that, in 1995,
Extrapolating the results of American research to the United Kingdom gives us 10,000 premature deaths per annum. I look to the Minister to tell us whether he agrees with or refutes that extrapolation.
The Committee on Medical Effects of Air Pollutants, reporting in September 1995 on the health effects of non-biological particles in outdoor air found that there was clear evidence of associations between levels of particles such as those found in the United Kingdom and indicators of damage to health. The committee reported that people with pre-existing respiratory and/or cardiac disorders would be expected to be most at risk of acute effects from exposure to particulates. It stated in its report that the effects range from changes in lung function, to increased symptoms, to days of restricted activity, to hospital admissions and to premature mortality. The committee added:
The hon. Member for Luton, South outlined clearly, at a human level, the consequences that are embodied in the report.
We need to look also to the Government's Expert Panel on Air Quality Standards, which reported two months after the committee's report. It is significant that it stated that
That is much in line with the World Health Organisation's report, from which the hon. Member for Luton, South has quoted.
The panel went on to recommend a new standard of 50 g/m 3 as a 24-hour running average. I note that the Minister is nodding. It is more significant that the panel recommended that the Government implement a strategy that would reduce progressively both the numbers of 24-hour exceedances of 50g/m 3 and annual concentrations of PM10s in the UK. I understand that the Government have accepted the 50g/m 3 as a standard. I hope that the Minister will tell us what further consideration he has given to the factors that take us beyond acceptance of the recommendation as a working standard.
I suspect that the Minister, like myself, is more than aware of the exposure above the standard of 50g/m 3 that has occurred in our major cities on many occasions recently. In London, the level was exceeded 29 times. The latest figures that I have relate to 1993. In Belfast, it happened on 45 occasions. In the centre of Birmingham, it occurred on 24 occasions. The figures for Leeds and Bristol are 23 and 25 respectively. We might reflect on what that means in terms of human health.
Perhaps it was those figures that prompted the independent advisory quality of urban air review group to compile a recent report on particle pollution. I wonder what has happened to that report. I wonder whether the Minister will tell us. There are some who believe that the report has been suppressed. Will the Minister tell us what is in the report and what is recommended? Will he tell us also whether he intends to publish it?
Do the Government accept the 50g/m 3 standard and the need to put a strategy in place to enable us to improve on it? That is surely what the hon. Member for Luton, South has been urging. Will the Minister--
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. James Clappison):
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Ms Ruddock:
I have many questions for the Minister. The hon. Member for Luton, South has paid him several compliments and made some suggestions, but I have many specific questions. I hope that he will respond to them. We have time, and he has the opportunity to respond.
Mr. Clappison:
I could respond now.
Ms Ruddock:
I am grateful to the Minister for offering to answer now. As I have so many questions, however, he might find it more convenient to answer later.
Will the Minister tell us specifically when the 50g standard will be adopted, and when he believes that it could be met? Furthermore, what is the Government's view of recent research that indicates that particles smaller than 10 microns are even more injurious to human health?
When will the national air quality strategy be published? A strategy is now long overdue. What are the reasons for the delay? Has there been delay because, as some suspect, other Departments are dragging their feet? How will the Department of the Environment be reconciling the UK strategy with the European framework directive on air quality management and assessment?
Where is the Government's guidance on air quality management for local authorities? I remember well the debates in Committee on what was the Environment Bill. At the last minute, the Government introduced many new proposals in response to the tremendous pressure from the Opposition and many pressure groups. As I have said, they introduced a set of new proposals. They were unable to answer many questions, to produce timetables or to give details. They were unable to produce targets and standards.
The Government promised, however--we legislated to this effect--that, under the Bill when enacted, local authorities must have regard to guidance on the management of air quality in undertaking their new air quality and air management functions. However, although 14 local authority areas have been chosen to pilot the air quality management scheme, no guidance has been published. When will it be published--or will those local authorities just be expected to get on with it? Many of them, of course, have already been doing just that under Labour administrations, taking initiatives long before the Government was embarrassed into making a commitment on air quality strategy.
It would also be helpful if the Minister would say when the pilot schemes are expected to come on stream, and whether a mechanism has been decided for the distribution of the funding of those schemes. He will undoubtedly be aware that local authority associations believe that the pilot scheme will require £15 million if it is to work effectively, but the Government have allocated
just £3 million, to be divided, apparently, among 80 local authorities. Will the Minister elaborate on that, because local authorities are very anxious about their ability to meet the new duties that the Government have imposed on them? When and how will that money be distributed?
I have no doubt that the Minister will be able to tell us some of the measures that the Government undertook in the previous Budget, to which the hon. Member for Luton, South referred--for example, duties on fuel, which are important because the use of fuel impacts on air quality--but, as always, the measures are piecemeal. They lack the essential strategic impact, and attempt to use simplistic market mechanisms as a panacea for all environmental problems.
Where is the advice and the support to local authorities on this issue? The hon. Member for Luton, South referred to the experiments, with which I am familiar, that local authorities have undertaken of their own volition, but where is the encouragement from the Government for local authorities to put their own houses in order? Where is the encouragement for them to run environmentally friendly municipal vehicles? Where is the encouragement for bus companies to run environmentally clean buses?
My local authority of Lewisham has undertaken to experiment with electric vehicles, which are ideal in city centres and the inner city, but my council, like every other council in the land with the exception of Westminster, is strapped for cash because of the Government's policies towards local government.
The vast majority of councils in Britain, which are controlled by the Labour party, are effectively defending the environment and looking for new solutions to critical problems, but they are stopped in their tracks repeatedly by a totally unsympathetic, ideologically hidebound Government who do not support such local authority initiatives. Is it not true--perhaps the Minister will specifically answer this question if indeed it is but an ugly rumour--that Treasury cuts are preventing London Transport Buses from investing in a package of pollution-control measures? I ask the Minister to give a clear yes or no on that issue. Why are the Government prevaricating on so many fronts?
Is the Minister aware that not only does the failure to act mean a continuing toll on human health, but it is a serious loss to British industry? The Government's decision to postpone the deadlines for the control of industrial emissions, for example, from the coating sector, have already had a severely detrimental effect on Britain's environmental technology and services industry.
The technology already exists for particulate emissions to be substantially reduced through PM10 filtration. Such measures would benefit our health and our environment, would boost our environmental industry and create much-needed jobs, but instead the Government prevaricate. No doubt they have bowed to lobbying pressure from the industry and put back the deadline, to the detriment of everyone else.
The hon. Member for Luton, South praised some of the efforts of sectors of the car industry in trying to solve their problems. We, too, applaud those efforts. Much can be done--much is being done. We very much support the technical fixes, such as the CRT--the continuous regeneration trap--filtration, the efforts of Johnson Matthey, and all the work that is being done in that direction, but, as the hon. Gentleman revealed, if we are
to have the benefit of these technical fixes, we will eventually need another technical fix, such as low-sulphur fuels.
We have many ancient buses on our streets today, which pollute our urban environments, as a direct consequence of Government policy. The hon. Gentleman challenged the Minister to respond on fiscal policies, and the Minister must do so. Yes, it can be a matter of fiscal incentives to get the technical fixes in place, but because of bus deregulation and privatisation there has been a tremendous lowering of standards, an increase in the age of the buses on the roads, and, indeed, a fall in their maintenance, which is critical if we are to deal with their emissions.
We accept that technical fixes have an important part to play. We are very much committed to the search for technical fixes, vehicle traps, the use of clean fuels and of cleaner fuels, but overall, no amount of technical fixing can solve the problem alone.
"the London Air Quality Network reported that London's air quality was deteriorating despite the introduction of catalytic converters on new cars."
"it would be imprudent not to regard the link as causal."
"it was not yet possible to identify a threshold level for particles below which no ill effects occur."
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