A Labour government would deliver a new Clean Air Act
The facts are clear on air pollution: our air is toxic.
It’s linked to 40,000 premature deaths each year. Nearly 60 per cent of the population is exposed to illegal levels of air pollution, and it is children and babies who are most at risk from the associated health impacts – with hundreds of schools and nurseries close to the most polluting roads.
From Southend to Leamington Spa, Glasgow to Scunthorpe, air pollution is a national public health emergency. And it is an issue that SERA, Labour’s environmental campaign, has been working on for a very long time. Earlier this year we launched the Breath of Fresh Air campaign, calling for the government to act strongly with a new Clean Air Act and whether we are talking to MPs, councillors, community groups or our members, it is clear that this is an issue that people are deeply worried about
And yet, even as the evidence grows each day, and more voices call for urgent action — from the Royal College of GPs to the British Lung Foundation — the Government has done nothing. Theresa May has repeatedly, and consistently, failed to intervene and it has been left to Labour politicians, including Sadiq Khan, and external groups to hold her to account.
As the ClientEarth court case proved, government inaction is not only immoral, but also illegal, with even the EU threatening to take the UK to court. But even after being ordered to produce a new plan by the Supreme Court – the Government are trying to hide behind excuses to delay action further.
Purdah — the reason the government is giving for their latest inaction — is not an excuse.
It kicked in just three days before the plan legally had to be published, so surely if the government had any intention of meeting the deadline, bringing forward the launch by a few days would have made no difference? This plan was ordered five months ago, and while the general election was a surprise, the local elections — and their purdah period — are not. Even so, the Purdah guidelines specifically contain an exemption for essential consultations, including safeguarding public health. Not acting now is either sheer incompetency or apathy.
While the Tories do nothing, Labour have promised immediate action to safeguard public health. As SERA has long campaigned for, a Labour government would, within just 30 days of office, introduce a new Clean Air Act — matching the commitment shown in the 1950s when tackling the country’s deadly smog.
As well as giving councils the powers to establish smoke control zones, the original Clean Air Act also championed firm action, including offering grants, so that householders could convert their coal-burning fires to smokeless fuel. Labour’s Clean Air Act could, via fair diesel scrappage scheme and incentives for alternatives, tackle our toxic air without punishing the public.
A national act, rather than piecemeal intervention could also set a clear plan for the transition to a cleaner, more efficient transport system, by providing funding for local authorities, clear infrastructure targets for the likes of electric vehicles and better integrated public transport. With a vision of transport fit for the 21st century, it could not only address an urgent crisis, but set out a roadmap for something better.
From Sadiq Khan’s work in London, to ambitious plans from Labour councils across the UK, Labour in power is already leading on air quality. A Labour government — with this commitment to a new Clean Air Act — would add weight to these actions, tackle the issues head on and help us save lives and improve health across the UK.
We simply can’t afford another five years of delays.
Adam Dyster is national organiser for SERA, Labour’s Environment Campaign
10 Responses to “We can’t afford another five years of Tory inaction on air pollution”
gwyneth stringer
We need a better bus service using clean/buses which will help to reduce the use of cars.
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patrick newman
A scrappage scheme will not deal with the short term problem and will favour those on middle and high income. People forget a new car comes with a hefty built in pollution record from its manufacture and it could be a year or two to get the environmental payback. In the short term radical measures are needed such as licensing access to dense conurbations, outright bans at certain times, a nation based scheme modelled on Khan’s London proposals, retro fit cleaner burn devices, dillution of diesel fuel like adding petrol or other hydrocarbons, differential pricing of diesel against petrol but bearing in mind the CO2 issue that got us here. Labour should be promoting a massive push to public transport (clean of course). Anyone for trolley buses?
Craig Mackay
One of the big problems about pollution is that we get used to what we are used to. I live in Cambridge which used to have one of the highest pollution levels in the country. This was fixed by moving the pollution monitor out of centre to somewhere with sweeter air. Nobody thinks of Cambridge as being badly polluted but it is downwind from London. Today we have a strong northerly wind and it is substantially sweeter and fresher not just because it is colder. As someone brought up in Scotland this is the air I was brought up with which one could decently breathe and not worry about. Atmospheric pollution affects us all and a day like this should make us all realise what a difference a bit of fresh air makes. We certainly cannot afford another five years of delays.
m magee
Diesel particulate (PM’s) and NOX pollution are a serious issue that is long overdue for an updated Clean Air Act but, as was pointed out by leading research experts, during the heating season the fashion of using wood burners in urban areas has become a countrywide problem contributing at times an equal if not greater contributor to PM2.5 pollution than diesel pollution. The current Clean Air Act does not offer any real or substantive protection for neighbours from wood smoke (proven carcinogen). Building and Planning regulations for wood burners only offer any substantive protection to their owners. Neighbours are not protected and Councils won’t act to protect neighbours who are regularly forced to endure smoke coming into their homes as indicated in the following Times Article http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/only-one-person-is-prosecuted-in-crackdown-on-chimney-pollution-fw56bzhhr
Alma
Why are you thinking about bus services? Did you noticed that trams and trolleybus are not polluting the air! And inactivity can end when someone will ask for results. Since no one is asking the right questions the inaction is still in place.