Broad coalition writes to chancellor, urging him to tackle air pollution with compensation scheme for motorists

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Taxi drivers and business leaders have added their voices to the growing campaign calling on ministers to introduce a diesel scrappage scheme to tackle dangerous levels of air pollution.

A broad alliance of business organisations and environmental charities has written to the chancellor, Philip Hammond, urging him to introduce a system in next week’s budget to compensate motorists switching from diesel to more environmentally friendly vehicles.

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Senior MPs, environmental groups and doctors are part of the coalition which says a scrappage scheme is essential if the government is to alleviate the air pollution crisis affecting many towns and cities in the UK.

The letter – signed by organisations including the Federation of Small Businesses, London First, Greenpeace and the Licensed Taxi Drivers’ Association (LTDA) – supports proposals put forward by the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, for a national diesel scrappage fund that he argues would financially compensate motorists and enable the government to get a grip on illegal levels of toxic air.

The move comes as environmental experts and senior politicians warn that the toxic air is having a major impact on people’s health in towns and cities across the UK – not just in London.



Neil Parish, the chair of the environment, food and rural affairs select committee, told the Guardian that despite the focus on the capital, the pollution crisis was a “countrywide challenge”, with more than 40% of UK councils breaching legal air pollution limits, according to the latest figures.



“It’s common knowledge that air pollution is a big problem in the capital, but it’s also a significant public health problem in other British towns and cities,” Parish said.



He added the capital was, in many ways, better equipped to deal with air pollution – with a “world-class, integrated transport system” and falling car ownership.



“Many other large British cities are more reliant on the car [and] air pollution levels remain stubbornly high,” he said.

Air pollution causes 40,000 early deaths in the UK and costs the country £27.5bn a year, according to government estimates. MPs have called it a public health emergency.



On Saturday the Guardian revealed that tens of thousands of children and young people at more than 800 nurseries, schools and colleges in London faced dangerous and illegal levels of toxic air, much of it from diesel cars.



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But the government’s own figures show the problem is not confined to the captial with 37 out of 43 zones in the UK breaching legal levels of nitrogen dioxide.

During a high court challenge to its air pollution policies last year it emerged that there had been a draft government plan for 16 low-emission zones, which polluting vehicles are charged to enter, in cities outside London. However the number was cut to just five on cost grounds.

The government lost the case and has been given until April to come up with tougher new proposals.

The appeal was bought by ClientEarth whose lawyer Anna Heslop said that while there “is rightly a lot of attention on London, as it has the worst air pollution in the UK, what people perhaps don’t realise is that there are illegal levels of air pollution across Britain”.



She called on the government to “introduce a national network of clean air zones” and support people to move away from diesel vehicles.



The transport secretary, Chris Grayling, indicated at the weekend that the government might bow to pressure for a scrappage scheme, saying motorists should be wary of buying diesel cars.

Two polls released this week show that only one in 10 people across the country think the air they breathe is bad. That figure rises to two-thirds in London.



Oliver Hayes, from Friends of the Earth which carried out one of the polls, said: “Whilst Londoners are starting to understand the air pollution crisis, in part due to welcome attention from politicians and the media, outside of the capital it’s a very different story.”



However, that may be beginning to change. Andy Burnham, the Labour candidate to become the first mayor of Greater Manchester, said air pollution was a major issue in the campaign.



He said the city had breached its legal air pollution limits for nitrogen dioxide every year since 2011.



“The situation in Manchester and other big cities could even be worse than it is in London because traffic congestion is an increasing problem,” he said.



Last year Burnham obtained figures showing that more than 64,000 people were admitted to hospital in Greater Manchester with respiratory problems – a 26% increase on 2010 – and among them more than 14,000 children under the age of four.

He has now written to the prime minister calling for greater powers for mayors to tackle the issue.



“I want powers to restrict diesel vehicles be they HGV or cars,” he said. “The situation for the people of Manchester as it stands is simply not acceptable.”

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