UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 229-iiiHouse of COMMONSMINUTES OF EVIDENCETAKEN BEFOREENVIRONMENTAL AUDIT COMMITTEE
AIR QUALITY
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Transcribed by the Official Shorthand Writers to the Houses of Parliament: W B Gurney & Sons LLP, Hope House, Telephone Number: 020 7233 1935
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Oral Evidence
Taken before the Environmental Audit Committee
on
Members present
Mr Tim Yeo, in the Chair
Martin Horwood
Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger
Jo Swinson
Dr Desmond Turner
Joan Walley
________________
Memorandum submitted by Defra
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Jim Fitzpatrick MP, Minister for Food, Farming and Environment, Mr Daniel Instone, Deputy Director, Air, Noise and Local Environmental Quality, Mr Robert Vaughan, Head of National and Local Air Quality, Atmosphere and Local Environment, and Mr Tim Williamson, Head of Science and Evidence, Atmosphere and Local Environment, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, gave evidence.
Q144 Chairman:
A warm
welcome and thank you for coming in a few minutes early as well; it is much
appreciated. We have got quite a lot of
interest in this inquiry. It is an issue
which I think many of us had not really thought about in tremendous detail
before we started and we have been quite struck by the evidence we have had so
far. Could I ask you just generally to
start off with: why do you think the Defra Air Quality Strategy has failed to
stop
Jim Fitzpatrick: Chairman, would it be helpful if I made a very brief opening statement and introduced my colleagues from the Department here?
Q145 Chairman: Of course.
Jim Fitzpatrick: I have Daniel Instone, who is
the Deputy Director for Air, Noise and Local Environmental Quality, Mr Robert Vaughan,
who has responsibility for the national and local Air Quality Strategy
management, and Mr Tim Williamson, Head of Science and Evidence for the Atmosphere
and Local Environment Programme for Defra.
We welcome the opportunity, Chairman, to come before the Committee today
because we recognise that this is an important issue and we are very pleased to
be here. Responsibility, as obviously
colleagues will know, is shared between Defra and the Departments of Health and
Transport whom, I know, you have engaged with.
There is significant progress which has been made since the mid-1990s,
and I will not quote the figures, but we can go into them later should you
choose. For PM10, we are now
only exceeding the European limit value at a very few localised hotspots in
Q146 Chairman:
That
is helpful, thank you very much. I think
it leads me back to the same point: would you like to say why you think the
strategy followed so far by Defra, although obviously it has achieved a number
of the goals, still leaves
Jim Fitzpatrick: Well, we are working very
hard obviously to be within the limits which are set down by the Commission in
the Directive. We have certainly, as I
have outlined, met a number of those and we are seeking additional time, as
many other Member States are, to make sure that we are able to get within
others and, in that instance, we do not think that we will be outwith the
requirements set by
Q147 Chairman: What are the particular problems, do you think, that need to be solved now?
Jim Fitzpatrick: If you will allow me, Chairman, I have obviously invited my colleagues to contribute where their expertise is far more competent than mine. One of the areas in the briefings and discussions that we have had which has been disappointing is that in the testing regime, for example, for diesel engines which indicated that they would actually be cleaner because of the catalytic technology which was available, in reality, now we are up to 40 per cent of vehicles driven by diesel, the results have been disappointing and they have not actually reflected those initial tests. We clearly have hotspots, as I outlined in my initial statement, in Central London and that is due to volumes of traffic, the lack of the latest technology, and the Euro 6 standard will obviously improve that and bus engine technology will obviously improve that, and in terms of congestion reducing the number of vehicles and going for modal shift will assist as well, so there are a whole number of factors which are impacting in terms of what we are still seeing in terms of NOx and PM10 and it is very much a matter of looking at the whole raft of measures and initiatives that we might be able to introduce to drive the emission levels down even further.
Q148 Chairman: Well, we will come back to the transport issues later on. We, I think, felt that there was perhaps insufficient urgency in the approach of the Department for Transport to some of these problems. Basically, what you are saying is that you are going to try and buy a bit more time. When, do you think, might we actually face the start of proceedings by the EU if they do not agree to what you have asked for?
Mr Instone: We have two separate timescales on this, one in relation to PM10 where we have already submitted an application for a time extension, and that is where we are having further discussions with the Commission. The gap is pretty small at the moment between what we have offered and where we need to get to and we think there is a pretty good chance of actually achieving that, so the issue about fines will not arise. Now, clearly there is a significantly bigger challenge when it comes to oxides of nitrogen where what we are looking for, along with, I should emphasise very strongly, a range of other Member States, is to achieve a time extension to 2015, so that is the date we are looking for. The Commission have asked that Member States who are looking for a time extension, all of them, put in their applications by next year, so the Commission will then obviously take some time to look at all of that, so it is impossible to say at this stage exactly what time because then we are in the hands of the Commission about the timescale, but that gives you a rough idea.
Q149 Chairman: What sort of fines might we be liable to?
Mr Instone: That again varies considerably. As the Committee probably knows, there is quite a lot of discretion for the European Court of Justice in the way that they actually determine levels of fines. In principle, it could be a mixture of a lump sum and a per-day rate, but exactly what it would be, clearly fines are likely to be substantial and are meant to be, and the Commission's main objective is to avoid having to fine, but to ensure that Member States deliver what is needed without it, so we cannot give a precise figure on it.
Jim Fitzpatrick: But we ought not to incur them in the first instance anyway.
Q150 Chairman: If there is a fine, given the present state of public finances, how does it get paid for?
Jim Fitzpatrick: Well, if there is a fine, then obviously the Government will be responsible for paying that. I have had informed discussions with a number of local authorities and we had an informal session in the Department last year with some local authorities who were performing very well in respect of local air quality and we had an Air Summit later last year when we brought in a whole range of local authorities to share best practice and to try to ensure that everybody was aware of the good work that was being done in different parts of the country. One of the questions which came up was that, if the Government were fined and it was as a result of London's inability to get within the values and levels that it ought to, why should the Exchequer pay London's fine and the rest of local government across the country suffer as a result, which, I must confess, had not occurred to me at that time. This follow-on question of course was: could we then transfer any fines on UK plc to whoever happened to be Mayor of London? This is not an attack on Mayor Johnson, and I do not know if there is a legal technical answer to that, but it is interesting that it was in the minds of local authorities that they were thinking that the public sector borrowing requirement, because the Treasury would have to pay the fine, could very well impact on the level of rate settlement that they would get and, in that instance, that may be unfair, particularly for authorities which are doing very well, but ultimately it would be down to the Government to meet the cost as it stands at the moment and we do not see any way out of that other than, as Daniel has tried to explain, Chairman, making sure that we do not fall foul of the Directive and that we actually manage to get inside the limits which are required of us.
Mr Wlliamson: It is probably worth pointing out that for nitrogen dioxide, the European Commission is expecting virtually all Member States to have to apply for a time extension. This is not a UK-only problem, but this is one which is being faced by the majority of the European Member States.
Chairman: From the point of view of people suffering the health effects of course, the fact that other countries are equally bad is not a great consolation.
Q151 Joan Walley: You mentioned just now, Minister, that Defra, along with the Departments of Health and Transport, are looking at a shared responsibility for how to deal with air quality controls, and I just wonder, as there are other government departments and you just mentioned local authorities and I am thinking particularly of DCLG, what are you doing to make other parts of Government aware of the costs of poor air quality?
Jim Fitzpatrick: Well, there is research which is commissioned by, and coming out from, the Department of Health which is sponsored by the Department of Health principally, but obviously DfT are the lead in respect of transport and we are the ministry responsible for air quality, so there is a shared responsibility. When it comes, Ms Walley, as you describe, to making sure that we can share that with colleagues in local government, then we have undertaken directly to liaise with them through other government departments very much as a matter of making sure that we disseminate as much information as possible to make people aware of the issue, were they not to be, and my impression is that most people are aware of the issue, and some of the challenges, some of the solutions and some of the research which has been undertaken by various government departments.
Mr Instone: If I might just add to that, we have established the whole area of air quality combined with noise and local environmental quality as a formal programme within Defra and we have a programme board which we have recently revamped and we chair that, but that includes representations from all the key departments, including the Department of Health, the Department for Transport and, as you mentioned, the Department of Communities and Local Government as well plus some others, so we have established a pretty close working link, and we spend a lot of time in any case between meetings having a lot of discussions, whether bilateral or multilateral, with those departments; it is incredibly inter-departmental in its focus.
Mr Vaughan: Also, if I might just add as well, I regularly meet with colleagues in DCLG and ensure that air quality is taken into account in policies. I also attend meetings with local transport planning body officials in DfT to ensure that they take account of air quality in the development of their guidance and the advice they give to local authorities.
Q152 Joan Walley: The question which follows on for me to ask is: in terms of the Cabinet Office Strategy Unit and the way in which all these different policies are co-ordinated across government departments and also with DCLG and local authorities, what recognition will there be of this air quality issue in the new planning guidance which is about to be issued any time this month in respect of the new spatial planning? For me, when we are planning either roads or whether or not we are planning, for example, waste transfer stations or anywhere where there is likely to be extra pollution, I would like to know how this is being reflected in this joined-up approach that the Government is telling us that it has.
Mr Vaughan: Well, the new planning guidance must take account of all environmental impacts in the development of plans, and one of those impacts would be air quality where air quality is integral to the preparation of plans.
Q153 Joan Walley: So that is going to be specified in the new planning guidance about to be issued, is it?
Mr Vaughan: It will need to take account of environmental impacts in the round, as it is described in the guidance, and air quality is one of those impacts.
Jim Fitzpatrick: And there is a public service agreement, PSA28, in which air quality is one of the five key indicators and that we do liaise directly on the PSA Board with DECC and DBIS and DCLG because air quality is one of the issues, but also land management, water quality, biodiversity and marine, so there is that tie-up under the PSA target as well.
Q154 Joan Walley: Just following up on the PSA28 target, are you putting incentives in there for the Department for Transport and Defra to contribute to that target? Are you just expecting them to do it or are you putting incentives in?
Jim Fitzpatrick: I am sorry, I do not understand what you mean by "incentives", Ms Walley.
Q155 Joan Walley: Well, are you just leaving it to chance that those targets are going to be achieved, or how are you actually incentivising the people who sign up to those targets to actually deliver them?
Jim Fitzpatrick: Well, in terms of any PSA, if the Government does not meet its target, then it stands in the dock accused by public opinion of setting itself indicators which it then clearly may not have met. We do not think, having identified that these are issues which need to be addressed, that we would fail, and in terms of air quality the Directive sets down the parameters within which we ought to be operating and that clearly is where the Government has got to demonstrate that it is performing as required and, as Daniel outlined a moment ago, we think that we will be able to demonstrate that we will be within the Directive.
Q156 Joan Walley: So you are confident that other departments are accountable for the way that they are contributing to that PSA target?
Jim Fitzpatrick: I would be extremely surprised if any government department was not accountable, not least through your good selves as well as through their own select committees as well as through public opinion. This is very much a matter of public record and public policy and, in that instance, the Government is fully accountable.
Mr Vaughan: Just to add, the DfT is specifically accountable for the joint team of the air quality indicator within PSA28, and that is laid down in the Treasury guidance on the PSA itself, specifically that the DfT is the joint partner to deliver that work. As a whole, PSA28 is a Government-wide target and I report regularly to the Cabinet Committee on the progress with all the indicators within PSA28.
Q157 Joan Walley: Can I just widen it out a little bit and ask in which areas the Government is really having to make trade-offs between action on air quality and action on other policy objectives? Have you come across a situation where you have really had to make a trade-off in terms of how you evaluate whether or not the air quality goes first or another aspect of policy takes precedence?
Jim Fitzpatrick: I am not aware of a trade-off. Obviously, colleagues here are dealing with it every single day. My understanding and expectation is that they are doing everything within their power to make sure that we accomplish the requirements of the Directive and the targets laid down by PSA28 and the rest, and we are not making trade-offs. They have got their work programme cut out, as they have been starting to explain, and, unless there is something in particular where you may think we are in some way, shape or form negotiating, compromising or trading off, I am not aware of any trade-offs.
Mr Instone: I think the main issue around trade-offs is more just looking at the relative cost-effectiveness of different policies as a means, in particular, of achieving our EU targets. When we published our Air Quality Strategy in 2007, we did, as you probably know, include some quite detailed impact assessments of the different policies and their relative costs and effectiveness, so, in a way, that gives us a guide to how we write policies, so it is more about the costs and effectiveness than it is about trading off between policy objectives.
Mr Vaughan: If I may just add, there may be some particular policy areas, particular trade-offs, to consider. For example, on air quality and climate change, there are considerations in achieving more biomass burning and a trade-off there needs to be considered, and what we do there is we work with the departments to assess the costs and benefits and to ensure that the costs and benefits of air quality impacts are taken into account in those trade-offs. The reverse of that is also true for air quality where in all the Euro standards, for example, for vehicle emissions, there are trade-offs there to the benefit of air quality in some of the higher Euro standards because they involve slightly more fuel consumption, and again those trade-offs are taken into account in the assessment of the costs and benefits of those policy areas, so certainly they exist, but we do take them into account in how we appraise costs and benefits.
Mr Wlliamson: Plus, as the Minister mentioned in his opening remarks, we are publishing a document which will set out actually how air quality and climate change policies going forward can maximise the synergies and can maximise the co-benefits that can be attained from aligning both climate change and air quality policies, and we think they are considerable going into the future.
Q158 Joan Walley: I think we are just picking up on concerns which were given to us in written evidence from the Institute of Air Quality Management, but just finally on this group of questions: are you confident that you can actually link in, given the separation that there now is between Defra and DECC, so that there is a way of actually resolving the climate change issues along with environmental issues?
Jim Fitzpatrick: Yes.
Q159 Joan Walley: Have you got a mechanism for doing that?
Jim Fitzpatrick: As Daniel was describing earlier on, the various committee structures that are in position give us a clear opportunity to be able to make those connections and we have got no concerns about the lack of good, strong communication links between departments to make sure that we can work together effectively.
Q160 Dr Turner: Jim, you are obviously aware of the effects on public health attributed to air quality. Of course, the Department that you are defending this morning represents transport which is fingered as the biggest culprit. Are you satisfied with one of the metrics which is commonly used, which is the reduction in life expectancy which, on average, is just a few months, to measure the health effects, bearing in mind that that statistical average hides an awful lot of much more unpleasant statistics for several thousand people?
Jim Fitzpatrick: Well, I have naturally discussed this with my colleagues, the officials in the Department, about the different ways that statistics have been presented because clearly, whereas our perspective is that the impact of poor air quality, on average, is reducing life expectancy by between seven to eight months across the country, compared to some of the reports of the Committee's inquiry in the media recently saying that there is a range of between 12-35,000 deaths per annum, they are clearly completely different ways of presenting the evidence. As it was explained to me, and colleagues will be able to offer more technical explanation of life expectancy, if we were able to eliminate poor air quality tomorrow, we would not have 12-35,000 deaths next year because air quality is a contributory factor and taken alongside everything from smoking, obesity, poor diet, lack of exercise, which contribute to the life expectancy reduction that we have analysed in our data and then given a value to in order to try and impact on public awareness as well as government policy how serious an issue this is, but, were we to be able to wave a magic wand and have clean air tomorrow, we would not be saving 12-35,000 lives next year. In that instance, we are comfortable and confident about the way that we are presenting the evidence, that it is a more rational, a more accurate way to portray it and it does not diminish the seriousness of the issue, but we think it better reflects the actual challenge that is out there for us because we are intent on improving air quality, as it has been improving over the years, and with that improvement we would certainly expect to see a reduction in the life expectancy lost, which is averaged out on our data, of between seven to eight months across the UK.
Mr Wlliamson: One of the key points here is that, coming out of the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollution, there was a lot of expertise within that committee and we relied quite heavily on their expert advice and they have estimated that the long-term impacts of particulate pollution are about ten times higher than the short-term impacts, which is why we calculated that long-term impact. We calculated it taking the whole population over a period of 100 years, so you see how that exposure to particulates plays out on the life expectancy of the whole population rather than just taking one-year snapshots; we believe it is a much more robust way of actually, as the Minister said, presenting the evidence.
Q161 Dr Turner: Well, there are some very debatable issues in what you have both just said, but, having said that, does it give you comfort that at the same time, as you have just told us, you are pretty close to meeting the European recommended standards for air quality, yet we still have this level of public health impact which makes one question (a) whether the European standards are themselves adequate, and (b) whether there should not be more urgency in making sure that we do at least meet those standards?
Mr Wlliamson: We have made it clear in the
Air Quality Strategy that the health evidence shows that there is no,
effectively, safe level for particulate pollution. It is one of the reasons why the
Q162 Dr Turner: What assessment have you made of the economic impacts, given that a lot of premature deaths average just under ten years' estimated shorter reasonable life expectancy, numbers between anything up to 50,000, and this has a great cost, added to that all those people who suffer from chronic conditions which take them effectively out of the workforce and so on? What is your estimate of the cost of the public health impact?
Mr Wlliamson: Using a number of different economic tools, the cost has been estimated at between £7-20 billion a year and that is a social cost, that is not money in terms of what the NHS spends, but it is based on a willingness to pay estimate. Now, that cost takes into account the impact of PM2.5, very fine particulate matter, on mortality, so deaths and deaths from which causes. What we do not have is a good, robust way at the moment of calculating the impact on illness and on morbidity, and the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollution is working on a study to define that at the moment.
Q163 Dr Turner: So we are talking then about a level of cost which is much higher than that attributed to lack of exercise and, frankly, the Government makes much more noise about trying to educate the public about the benefits of exercise and healthy living than it does about the impact of air quality. Government is in a position through policy, and particularly transport policy, to do something about it, whether we are blaming PM10, NOx or whatever. If we change and we decarbonise transport and if we more urgently drive, for instance, an electric/hydrogen fuel economy for transport, we can make a much bigger impact on air quality, can we not?
Jim Fitzpatrick: I do not disagree with the
premise, going back to your first question which was about whether we are taking
this seriously enough and then your subsequent questions about the monetised
impacts on the
Q164 Dr Turner: The point I wanted to get to still stands of course. You are right, there are other factors, but in this case addressing the air quality impacts of transport and the climate change impacts of transport go hand in hand, so, given the huge costs in public health terms of poor air quality, is it not worth investing more in driving a technology change in transport faster which will address both of these issues at the same time?
Jim Fitzpatrick: Well, there is a work
programme laid down in terms of Euro 6 in respect of HGVs. We have low emission zones, which are used
perhaps more in
Mr Vaughan: DfT already are committing funds to the promotion of electric vehicles, in particular, and the establishment of electric charging points through the newly created Office of Low-Emission Vehicles within DfT, and that is also pushing forward funding for green bus purchase by transport operators, and it just distributed £30 million last November to a number of different transport providers across the country specifically for green bus fleets.
Q165 Dr Turner: That is fine, but, now that a hydrogen-based transport fleet is looking to be technically feasible, should we not be putting in more effort to incentivise the development of that because that would eliminate the particulates, apart from in braking systems, it would eliminate NOx emissions and sulphur emissions and it would eliminate CO2 emissions? Since that is now looking technically possible, why do we not put more resource into that?
Mr Instone: That is something, as my colleague has indicated, that the Office of Low-Emission Vehicles will be looking at because of course you get both air quality and CO2 benefits from that, so that is something which is very much under active consideration. What is clear is that we need a range of measures here because of course getting the air quality improvements requires not simply introducing new vehicles into the fleet, new kinds of vehicles, although obviously that is part of it, but also trying to remove as many as possible of the most polluting vehicles, so it is particularly important that we address that issue of what are we doing about the large number of vehicles that are going to be on the fleet, particularly in the short to medium term, so that is why some of the measures, for example, the tax measures that the Chancellor announced in previous budgets for encouraging reduced pollution from heavy vehicles, are very relevant, so we have to think, therefore, about quite clearly a range of measures at both ends, both for the new vehicles where promoting is absolutely essential and also doing what we can as quickly as possible to clean up the vehicles that are already on the roads.
Q166 Chairman: Just developing this a bit, in terms of making the public more aware of the effects of air quality on health, do you have a strategy to try and raise awareness and to improve understanding about this?
Mr Instone: We have done various work on this area. For example, simply in documents we have published in the past, that is meant to be raising awareness. We have also introduced various campaigns, or the Government has, in relation to CO2, and we have talked about campaigns like Act on CO2 and the work to encourage people to use public transport, so we have done a lot, particularly bearing in mind, as has already been indicated, the very strong synergies between action to reduce CO2 from vehicles and action to remove local air quality pollutants. There is always scope for doing more here, but there has been quite a lot of activity, particularly in the transport area, encouraging modal shift and encouraging the reduced use of cars.
Mr Vaughan: Just to add on the public awareness and the information provision, we do help operators with a website where we do provide a very great deal of information to the public about air quality in their local area, what their local authorities are doing to improve air quality in their local area and what they themselves can do to protect themselves if they need to if they are a vulnerable group, for example. We also provide, and have provided in the past, bundling to services, such as air texts and air alerts, which alert vulnerable groups through messaging text services if pollution is going particularly high on particular days. Also, many local authorities at the local level do an awful lot of work to promote air quality through teaching packs, business partnerships and travel planning and so on and so forth, as my colleague Daniel has said, linking with climate change wherever they can because the opportunities are there to achieve the same benefits.
Q167 Chairman: In practice, how do you think the improved public awareness of these issues might actually lead to behaviour change? Do you think that, in reality, that actually happens or that people just go on doing what they would have done anyway?
Jim Fitzpatrick: What was quite apparent when I met the local authorities who are doing well and then subsequently at the Air Quality Summit was how effective local communities were once they had recognised they had an issue. There was one particular community group from Sheffield, and we can send the Committee the study, Chairman, who identified that they were having a big problem and then basically took it on themselves to address it and enlisted the support of Sheffield City Council and then started managing their own air quality with a whole number of initiatives in respect of traffic management, in respect of greening their area, in respect of encouraging modal shift, et cetera, and they were able to show that they had an impact, as was described a minute ago by Robert, and the monitoring of the air quality in their area improved and it was down to the local community taking responsibility for itself, so in that one example it was quite clear that public awareness did actually work in alerting people in a residential area, a relatively ordinary residential area, if I may describe it as that and not in any way, shape or form being disparaging, to take control of their own lives and impress upon the City Council that they wanted to see action, and they got action and it resulted in better air quality for themselves and their families, much to their credit.
Q168 Dr Turner: Have you made any assessment of the impacts and costs of air pollution on ecosystems?
Mr Wlliamson: We have certainly made estimates of the impacts on ecosystems, but valuing the impacts on ecosystems has proved extremely difficult and we are not able to do that at the moment. What we do have though, what Defra has certainly developed, is the ecosystems services approach which looks at actually what services a healthy ecosystem provides, and that includes well-being, clean air, clean water and so on. There is a methodology that we can use there to start valuing ecosystem impacts, but it does need more research; it is extremely complicated. Valuing the effect on human health just looks at one organism. If we are looking at ecosystems, we are looking at a whole range of organisms, and some of the changes, some of the damage that an ecosystem will suffer as a result of air pollution is quite subtle, so changes from a certain type of plant growth, heather for example, to a grass-based system counts as damage in ecosystem terms. To the public, it may not look that different, so it is a very difficult and very complex area. We are working towards valuing the ecosystem impacts, but we are not able to do so at the moment.
Q169 Dr Turner: Do you think that the 2007 Air Quality Strategy may have been compromised and may not be as radical as it might have been because of an obvious complete lack of any cost-benefit analysis and methodology applied to ecosystems, but not much evidence of a cost-benefit analysis even applied in public health? Had there been a rigorous cost-benefit analysis, do you think we could have ended up with a more radical Air Quality Strategy?
Mr Wlliamson: I think that is difficult to say; we are making a judgment on something we are not able to do. The estimates certainly I get from my economic colleagues is that we have captured the main, the largest value in terms of monetary value impacts plus the effect it has had on mortality of PM2.5. The other impacts, if we were able to, and we hope to be able to, value them, would be substantial, but it is not thought to be gain-changing, as it were, they would not change radically the direction of travel; we are already moving in the way that we believe would be right.
Q170 Dr
Turner: Well, what further action do you think
Government is going to have to take on air quality if the
Jim Fitzpatrick: I think we have outlined during the course of answering some of the other questions that there are a whole range of actions that we need to be addressing, and particularly we have been discussing mostly transport. Having outlined these, it is very much a matter of trying to make sure for vehicle emissions that either low emission zones or fiscal incentives are in place, whether it is technology and the introduction of the new Euro standards that manufacturers conform to the requirements which are laid out to them, whether it is local authorities being able to benefit from a better understanding of traffic management schemes, low congestion schemes or low emission zones which will help or whether it is the Local Transport Bill helping local authorities to negotiate cleaner buses with the bus operators. There are whole ranges of different ways that the improvement in air quality can be achieved, and that is only just mentioning a few that we have mentioned already this morning. There is a lot of research being undertaken by transport, and you have mentioned yourself the hydrogen situation, and Daniel outlined that this will obviously be examined by the Low Emission Unit, all the way through to, as Ms Walley mentioned, DCLG and planning policy and guidance in respect of section 106 agreements and developers being required to put in charging points as a sort of modern way forward to again encourage the use of electric vehicles. All of these things are at the disposal of local and central Government and they are initiatives that can be followed by local authorities or by vehicle manufacturers, and obviously we would hope that they would all be best embraced to make sure that we can improve the quality of the air which we all have to breathe because, regardless of where we are in the country, it is flowing around and everybody is impacted by it, but we know where the hotspots are in Central London and these clearly have to have a bit of a focus.
Mr Wlliamson: Going beyond that to look at the ecosystem impacts, there is a strong dependency on trans-boundary air pollution, so again it is working both on a national emissions basis and international emissions, so the UK is a very strong and active participant of the Convention on Long-Range Trans-Boundary Air Pollution, where a lot of drivers for that are the ecosystem impacts, the environmental impacts and the kind of impacts that are encapsulated in the sixth Environmental Action Programme.
Q171 Dr Turner: What about shipping and aviation then in that context?
Jim Fitzpatrick: Well, I actually asked and
one of the other areas, which I was just about to come in on before you
supplemented your question, one of the other initiatives within the plan is on
shipping and I was asking Tim earlier about what the impact of shipping is,
given that there would not seem to be necessarily, apart from the flow of air,
a direct correlation between what happens on the seas and what happens on
land. Of course, shipping is the highest
emitter of sulphurous fumes and the MARPOL Agreement which was reached at the
Q172 Dr Turner: Are you satisfied with urgency of those negotiations, given the background of the WHO report which suggests that worldwide 60,000 premature deaths result from shipping emissions? The world's busiest shipping lane is ten miles offshore from my constituency, so this is very much affecting my patch and this is something which at least European governments acting together can address by regulation by banning excessively polluting ships from our waters.
Jim Fitzpatrick: I think I am more confident
about shipping than aviation in an international sense because the agreement
that was reached last year at the
Mr Vaughan: In particular, on shipping
the MARPOL Agreement was agreed in 2008 to achieve reductions of something in
the region of 88 per cent of oxidous sulphur with benefits of up to £700
million for the
Q173 Joan
Walley: Just on shipping, I am sure that there will be
many ports and local authority areas where, if agreement can be got on
emissions from shipping in the port areas, there could be remarkable
improvements in terms of air quality, so I wish you well on that, and I will
not go down the aviation route with the court case which is at Heathrow today,
but can I just go back to local authorities.
You talked just now about the wonderful good practice that there was and
you referred to the case study that you had in
Jim Fitzpatrick: Well, I think that we must share at least some agreement on that because we convened the Air Quality Summit late last year to make sure that we could give a higher profile to the good practice, the best practice which was happening in certain parts of the country and share that with as many local authorities as possible. Forgive me, but I cannot remember how many local authorities turned up at that.
Mr Wlliamson: Eighty.
Q174 Joan
Walley: I would be very interested to know whether or
not
Mr Wlliamson: Yes, they did.
Q175 Joan Walley: I would just be interested to know whether or not you have got any answer to the residents who have great public awareness that they do not want certain facilities in the wrong place which goes against the grain of transport policy and actually encouraging safe routes to schools and all of that when you get large lorries using narrow, unsuitable roads for waste transfer stations.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Daniel has advised just me,
we had close to between 80 to 100 local authorities there as a third of local
authorities in
Q176 Joan Walley: Do you think you could do more to help DCLG prioritise making progress on this agenda?
Mr Vaughan: Well, we do provide guidance, DCLG provides guidance on pollution control, PPS23, and we have also provided guidance to local authorities which was launched at the event that the Minister refers to on the use of planning in low emissions and in low emission strategies, and we are working with a number of councils, beacon authorities, in England in particular to promote better use of planning arrangements and planning guidance to improve air quality. More local authorities are now building in air quality considerations through the provision of supplementary planning guidance to ensure that air quality is taken into account in the preparation of planning developments and planning proposals, so effort is being put into that area to provide assistance to local authorities to ensure that planning takes account of air quality impacts and also that, where it is possible to develop those through section 106 agreements, they are able to take account of the impacts they have on developments so that local authorities can take advantage of that.
Mr Instone: We do have a very strong and statutorily underpinned system of local air quality management which in fact puts quite a lot of requirements on local authorities both to review the level of air quality in their areas and, if there are problems identified, take specific action to address it. Indeed, some have criticised the system for being too heavy-handed because it is quite a strong system, so there is a very strong statutory underpinning in this area which sets the framework for the way local authorities have to go about it, and of course we have a very large number of local air quality management areas which have been declared by local authorities as a result of this process.
Q177 Joan Walley: I think it would be very helpful, if the Committee has not already got the detail of that, to have the detail of that before us for our Report.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Which particular piece of information is it that you want?
Q178 Joan Walley: What has just been referred to there in terms of ----
Mr Vaughan: The statutory system, what the system is. I am sure we can provide that.
Q179 Joan Walley: Yes, because I think the concern is that it does not seem to be applied right the way across the board.
Mr Vaughan: The statutory system, well, the legal requirements are laid down in section 80 of the Environment Act and all local authorities are required to review and assess local air quality and, where they have defined air quality problems, they must carry out further detailed assessments as to what the sort of extent of the problem is, what pollutants are particularly of concern and whether there is any exposure to local residents, the population, and then put in place action plans to address those concerns. As Daniel has said, there are about 230/240 local authorities which have declared air quality management areas and they might be no more than a single house or a row of houses or they might be for the whole authority, depending entirely on how the authority chooses to address the issue.
Q180 Joan Walley: But, given all that, what I do not understand is why it is so difficult for local authorities to actually set up low emission zones. Why do we not have more of them?
Mr Vaughan: I think local authorities have different ways of tackling the issue.
Q181 Joan Walley: Or sometimes not at all.
Mr Vaughan: Low emission zones might seem
an attractive solution in many instances and some authorities have set them
up. Obviously,
Q182 Joan Walley: Can I just ask finally on this: is there anything that is being done at the moment to make local authorities give more attention to this as part of the planning process, and we touched on it, but to really make it be considered as part of the planning process?
Jim Fitzpatrick: Well, DfT are in the lead on low emission zones. They have a study at the moment, looking at the effect of this in Europe and working out responses to the questions that Daniel raised about whether they can be introduced, should they be introduced, what is the cost, how best are they applied, what vehicles to apply them to, so I think they are producing this data to be able to disseminate it to local authorities and to be able to give best advice to those authorities who do want to use LEZs as a way to improve local air quality, so we know that they are researching and collating that at the moment. Obviously, when that is ready, I am sure that DfT will be publishing it for local authorities to be able to look at and see if it is a tool and, if so, which element of the tool would be good for their area.
Q183 Jo Swinson: I want to turn to the issue of power
stations. Why does the
Jim Fitzpatrick: The Environment Agency is obviously the statutory authority which has responsibility for licensing power stations. Each installation must have a permit which allows them continuing emission limit values and other conditions based upon the application of the best available techniques. As I say, the Environment Agency has to decide what they should be for each installation and, in that instance, they are the ones who issue the licence and they have to be satisfied that those requirements are being met.
Q184 Jo Swinson: In issuing their licences, to what extent do they assess the environmental and the public health impacts of these power stations?
Mr Vaughan: The Environment Agency carry out a full detailed assessment of all impacts a power station might have or any installation, for that matter, where they are the regulator. In the particular instance of a power station, it is determined that SCR, for example, was not economic to retrofit for the power stations concerned, the coal-fired and oil-fired power stations, at the present time and they considered that a different method of abatement was more economically viable and the best available technology.
Q185 Jo Swinson: My understanding is that, when the decision was made not to fit them with this selective catalytic reduction technology, that was because the plants had a limited life. Is that going to be reviewed now that the working life of those plants has been extended? Will the Environment Agency now require them to fit the appropriate technology to deal with the emissions or look to closing them, or is this just going to keep going on where they will have their lives extended, pumping out all of that pollution?
Mr Vaughan: I am afraid I cannot answer that question.
Jim Fitzpatrick: The regulator can review the permit conditions at any time and I am advised that they will certainly do so when the best available technology reference document for large combustible plants is revised in 2012, so it is very much a matter for the Environment Agency, but there will be a requirement in due course that they will have to review the best available technology element.
Mr Instone: It is worth noting there is, if you like, a
double standard of review here. You have
not only got the EU reviewing their guidance documents, which are known as
BREFs, as a means of keeping up-to-date with technology; but we also have,
going through the final stages of the process in Brussels at the moment, a
revised EU Industrial Emissions Directive.
We have got, if you like, a process of review in
Mr Williamson: It is probably worth noting as well that the Environment Agency regulate within the framework of the Air Quality Directive so meeting limit values, but also the National Emission Ceilings Directive, so the national ceilings and the national total emissions. It is finding a space between those two legislative requirements in which to operate the permits.
Q186 Chairman: Nevertheless, there seems to be a slight
assumption behind what you are saying that as long as we are doing as badly as
the rest of
Jim Fitzpatrick: I do not accept that description, Chairman. I know that we have discussed earlier in these proceedings the question from Dr Turner about whether we are satisfied that certainly because we are within a Directive then we are okay. Clearly there is an imperative to get within a Directive otherwise the discretion we had about infraction proceedings and fines comes into being; and naturally we do not want to go there if we can at all avoid at. By the same token, because of the developing science, the emerging data, the serious nature of the impact of air quality on public health, the research which is being undertaken by the Department of Health, by the Department for Transport, by ourselves, clearly indicates that just getting within the confines of Directives ought not to be our objective; we want to get to the best possible place on air quality. So I fully accept your concern clearly implicit in the question you raise. We would agree with you that we do have to do better, which is why we are striving as much as we can.
Mr Instone: Could I just add to that also on the point
about "it's okay to do as badly as
Q187 Dr
Turner: Obviously policies to deal
with air quality depend to a large extent on accurate monitoring. What can you tell us about the development of
air quality monitoring by both local government and central initiatives in the
Mr Williamson: We operate an extensive network of monitors and we supplement that using complex modelling techniques. We believe that gives us a better spatial coverage than just using monitoring. It also allows us to understand those locations where you would not otherwise have an air quality monitor. We spend a considerable sum of money every year supporting that network. It is designed primarily to serve the requirements, and the very prescriptive requirements, of the European Air Quality Directives; but it serves a number of other functions as well. We have our primary tools for generating data for research so it can better characterise and understand what is a very complex area.
Q188 Dr Turner: Are you, for instance, able to deploy the sort of technology which exists which can identify, for instance, an individual polluting vehicle entering a Low Emission Zone?
Mr Williamson: There are some technologies, remote sensing technologies, which have been developed. There is a limit to the number of pollutants that they can actually address and pick up. PM10 is a difficult one, simply because the way in which you analyse gases is slightly different from the way in which you analyse a solid particle, which is made up of a number of different components and does not behave like a gas. Those technologies do exist but they are very much for research rather than ongoing monitoring. The kind of monitoring equipment that we own and have out in the field is expected to run 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. The kind of equipment that exists to measure roadside emission plumes from vehicles is not that robust, and I do not think that would be the right use of that equipment; but there are some significant developments. There are constant developments in the field of monitoring. One of the areas that is receiving a lot of attention at the moment on a Europe-wide basis is a portable emissions monitoring system - so onboard monitoring systems particularly for HGVs; and that will be something that is introduced through the Euro 6 emissions standard for Heavy Goods Vehicles.
Q189 Dr Turner: This may seem a simplistic question, but without being able to monitor vehicles individually how can you police a Low Emission Zone effectively?
Mr Williamson: All vehicles on the road are required to
conform to what are called the "Euro standards", the emissions standards laid
down through a series of Directives in
Q190 Dr Turner: Surely if these vehicles are tested - and vehicle testing is normally an annual process - anything can happen in between?
Mr Williamson: The testing I am referring to is not the MOT test. Again, that is a relatively limited test in terms of emissions. The kind of testing I am talking about is ongoing research undertaken by the DfT - and by others in Europe as well, so there is a Europe-wide programme - who will constantly test vehicles both on test bed, so a rolling road situation, and actually on real world driving conditions.
Q191 Martin
Horwood: First of all, Minister,
gentlemen, can I apologise for being late.
The reason I am late is relevant to my question actually. I drove to my local station at
Cheltenham Spa to find that my train had been cancelled; I then drove to
Jim Fitzpatrick: I think we covered some of this a little earlier, Mr Horwood, in terms of the range of initiatives and incentives that are being promoted by Government: all the way through from the developing of more electric vehicles; the encouragement of hybrids; the vehicle tax incentives for hybrids and low emitting vehicles; the active CO2 campaigns to raise people's awareness of their own carbon footprint and to try encourage them out of their vehicles; and the present campaign, I think, is drive five miles less per week. So there are a whole number of public awareness initiatives. There are a number of incentives, fiscal and otherwise, to encourage individuals and vehicle manufacturers to produce and to purchase cleaner vehicles. The Local Transport Act provides for local authorities to engage in contracts with bus operators; and a lot of local authorities are demanding cleaner fleets be operating within their areas; so there are a whole number of different ways that we are trying to encourage people out of individual vehicles and into more collective forms of transport by modal shift and others.
Q192 Martin Horwood: I have to say, as a member of this Committee my awareness was pretty high, but it did not make my journey any less easy. If I had tried to take the bus I think I would have been waiting all week. Are you talking to ministers in, for instance, DfT about the need to meet the kind of targets we have been talking about and the urgent need to invest in things like rail infrastructure? The recent stimulus package during the height of the recession, the same amount of money that we spent on the VAT cut could have paid for the entire backlog of rail utilisation projects in this country, could it not?
Jim Fitzpatrick: You are tempting me to answer questions on behalf of Treasury and the DfT at the same time when we are here to give evidence on behalf of Defra, but I am quite happy to offer an opinion.
Q193 Martin Horwood: I understand that you are having conversations with them about this in the light of the tasks?
Jim Fitzpatrick: Forgive me, we outlined a little earlier the comprehensive nature of the engagement with DCLG, DECC, DfT, Treasury, the Department of Health in terms of dealing with air quality and a number of its different aspects. We clearly have an interest to make sure that as transport is a contributor to the deterioration or to the quality of the air that we breathe, and we are the ministry which is responsible for air quality, we have to have a relationship and we clearly do engage with them to make sure, as best we can, that the policies which they implement help us in that regard, much as they help Government in an holistic approach to Government policy.
Q194 Martin Horwood: Are you happy or unhappy with the contribution they are making so far - DfT?
Jim Fitzpatrick: As somebody who was a Transport Minister for two years up until last July, I think I would probably say that we are happy with what is being achieved so far; but as we have been discussing this morning - and I think the Chairman said maybe I should not be too close to transport in respect of this - we can always do more. We know we can do more. We know that there are initiatives and opportunities for all government departments to improve performance on every subject, and air quality is no different. We would hope that there would be an improvement in transport's profile in respect of the impact it has on air quality; and I am sure that colleagues in the Department for Transport are working hard to achieve that.
Q195 Martin
Horwood: On my way here I drove
through the London Low Emission Zone, but this is still quite an isolated
example, is it not? We do not yet have
any national framework for Low Emission Zones.
When countries like
Jim Fitzpatrick: Just before you arrived colleagues were
explaining the various obstacles to the introduction of Low Emission Zones, and
the fact that the Department for Transport are carrying out a study at the
moment as to how best to introduce Low Emission Zones. There is the understanding that the London
Zone is quite an expensive one to run because it operates on automatic number
plate recognition systems, as opposed to other European models where they are
operating on a paper-based system or a warden system or whatever. It is learning these lessons to work out what
is most useful and what can be deployed to best effect to reduce the emissions
and improve local air quality. In terms
of vehicle manufacturers, given the trans-national nature of companies and Euro
standards, I would be very surprised if we were giving an advantage to foreign
manufacturers because
Q196 Martin Horwood: In effect you are relying on the Euro Zone to raise air quality by being ahead of our game?
Jim Fitzpatrick: As Mr Instone explained only a moment or two ago, for example on PM2.5 we are actually leading Europe and we are giving them our latest evidence and data to say this is more of an issue than perhaps it was thought before; so we are not relying on other Member States and then just cosying up to their standards. We are actually trying to lead in our own right at the same time. One of the benefits of being part of the European Union is that we do not have to reinvent the wheel on our own: we can see what is happening in other Member States, share that best practice, learn from each other and then apply those lessons to positive effect if at all possible.
Mr Instone: It is worth adding on that, we have talked at some length about the importance - and we have given some examples - of close collaboration with other government departments in the UK; but a very key part of what we also do is to have very close contact with officials in other countries in Europe so that we can compare what we are doing and influence them even before proposals get formally tabled by the Commission in Brussels. That is an absolutely key part of what we do, to learn from each other on that.
Q197 Martin
Horwood: If that is true, and if that
has been true over time, why is it that the
Mr Instone: Different countries are bound to go at
somewhat different speeds, just as different local authorities in the
Q198 Dr Turner: Do you think Government could be doing more to encourage retrofitting of things like particulate traps and other methods of reducing vehicle emissions?
Mr Instone: We already have systems for introducing
particulate traps, and that is something which, for example, the Low Emission
Zone in
Mr Vaughan: Also in the past, DfT has supported reduced pollution certificates, or has issued reduced pollution certificates, which are also available for vehicles to have retrofitted to the correct Euro standard. That service for Euro 5, they issued 39,000 reduced pollution certificates, which allowed vehicle hauliers to claim against VAT for vehicles that were retrofitted or met the Euro 5 standard, which was about 10 per cent of the fleet.
Q199 Dr Turner: Which leads me directly on to the fact that the Treasury announced in 2009 that they planned to incentivise the early uptake of Euro 6 for HGVs. Has this started yet, and if not, when?
Mr Vaughan: It has not started yet because, firstly, the Euro 6 has only recently come in. The Community actually incentivise once the standard is available. The actual determination of the fine detail of the standard is still yet to be agreed. The Treasury have made it clear that those standards are not available to incentivise yet.
Q200 Dr Turner: Brake and tyre wear has been something of an intractable problem, particularly producing particulates. Has the Government got any plans to control this? What research has been undertaken to analyse the health effects of particulates from brake and tyre wear?
Jim Fitzpatrick: I think it is fair to say that as tailpipe emissions have decreased, or emissions from brake and tyre wear are becoming of increasing relative importance, because there is more research, there is more evidence, there is more data, research advice has been conducted on options to reduce tyre and brake wear but many of these have negative effects on road-holding, so there is a lot of further work to be undertaken. The increasing uptake of hybrid vehicles will have some positive effect on brake wear as a proportion of the vehicle braking effect is translated into power. Obviously all-electric vehicles are likely to have these systems. In one sense new technology is, in itself, helping eliminate some of these emissions; but also, because of the greater understanding of the whole question of air quality and emissions, there is greater focus being given on brake and tyre pollution; and obviously that is a matter for much further research.
Q201 Chairman: I think we have probably covered the ground we wanted to this morning. Thank you very much for coming in, it has been very helpful to us.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Thank you, Chairman. We will supply you with the two or three pieces of evidence that came up during the course of discussions in due course.