The prime minister pledged that ministers would work to “improve the quality of the air we all breathe”

Boris Johnson has backed the Times clean air campaign and committed himself to legally binding targets to reduce pollution as part of his first Queen’s Speech on Monday.

The prime minister pledged that a new Environment Bill would succeed the 1956 Clean Air Act, introduced in response to London’s Great Smog.

Praising this newspaper’s Clean Air for All campaign, Mr Johnson said that ministers would “improve our environment and the quality of the air we all breathe”.

The Times revealed in May that 2.6 million pupils attend schools in areas where the level of fine particles in the air exceeds the limit set by the World Health Organisation.

Every school in London is above the limit, as are 234 schools in Birmingham and more than