The Committee published its report today (11/02/2021) which looks at whether the Government’s 2019 Air Quality Strategy and the Environment Bill will deliver the national leadership necessary to deliver the “step change” in how air pollution is tackled in the UK. The Committee has found that more needs to be done to improve air quality in the UK and suggests that both the Government's Air Quality Strategy and Environmental Bill should be updated. 

The report recommends that: 

• Legally binding air quality limits should be created and that the Office for Environmental Protection be empowered to enforce these. 
• Defra, working with the Department of Health and Social Care and local health partners, should amend the Clean Air Strategy to include measures to reduce the long-term health inequalities associated with air pollution.
• As restrictions are lifted, the Government should work with local authorities and providers to reassure the public that public transport is safe and to promote its use. We welcome the Government’s efforts to help maintain public transport capacity through financial support to providers, given the likely shift in public behaviours this will need 46 Air Quality and coronavirus: a glimpse of a different future or business as usual to be maintained for a period after restrictions are lifted. The Government will also need to consider whether the financial stress providers are under will slow their move to cleaner vehicles and whether further public investment will be needed to maintain momentum.
• The Government must match its rhetoric on a longer-term shift to active travel with sufficient funding. 
• Where appropriate, temporary school streets introduced during the pandemic should be made permanent. The Government should be ambitious about increasing the number of school streets by working with local authorities, schools and civil society groups to develop a strategy to put them in place for every school where one would be appropriate, including measures to reduce parking and idling outside schools and the introduction of 20mph speed limits. This should be supported by an effective system of monitoring to help identify local exceedances of legal limits.
• The Environment Bill should be amended to include a health inequalities target, to reduce the number of deaths associated with air pollution; and to require the Secretary of State to take account of human health considerations when setting or reviewing air quality targets. It should include a duty on all Government departments and local government to work together to deliver these targets.
• The Government should expand the Defra/DfT Joint Air Quality Unit (JAQU) to include the Department for Health and Social Care, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, HM Treasury, and the Cabinet Office to achieve better coordination and increase its priority within Whitehall. The JAQU’s remit should include building support for action on air quality collaborating with local government, the NHS, business, academic and clinical researchers and civil society.

The full report is available here.