As readers may recall, March this year was full of potential to influence policy on air quality, with both a Government consultation and submissions of evidence to a Parliamentary inquiry. It’s been reassuring to see many experts give oral evidence to Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee* over the past few months, including friends of this blog Gary Fuller, Suzanne Bartington, Tom Parkes, Stephen Holgate and Larissa Lockwood.
What is less clear is what’s next. Parliamentary Committees make recommendations to Government, which is then required to respond and state which actions it will take forward, within two months. So stay tuned.
The sky is red
We were also delighted to see Lord Peter Babudu, previously Executive Director of Impact on Urban Health, call for the Clean Air Bill to be brought forward in Parliament (see his statement from 19:48 on this Parliamentlive.tv link). As readers of this blog will know, this law - sometimes referred to as Ella’s law - has been proposed many times in recent years but has struggled to progress through Parliament. We last saw movement on it last November and six months on we are still waiting for more progress, despite efforts by campaigners to have it included in the King’s speech.
Meanwhile, we are waiting for the response to the government’s woodburning consultation - with the British Medical Journal and Professor Sir Stephen Holgate raising the pressure amidst concerns about industry lobbying. However, Louise was impressed by updates from DEFRA about a wide range of actions they are taking forward as a result of the Environmental Improvement Plan during a recent event (held under Chatham House rule so no specifics here!)
As if we need reminding about why all this matters, there have been a number of warnings about moderate (which in the UK context is pretty high) air pollution over the past week. We’ve seen levels creep up over the past week at our Brixton monitoring node, reflected in wider alerts.
We need to see a concerted effort to get these levels down consistently and across all areas of the country! This particular mountain will need to be climbed by politicians, parliamentarians, local councillors, civil servants and more.
It’s competition time!
Let’s finish this week on an up… there is still time to enter this art competition!
Mums for Lungs are asking primary school children in Lambeth and Southwark to design a bright, bold poster on the theme of clean air - using any art materials - and send them in by 5 June. Five winners will be chosen and announced on Clean Air Day - Thursday 18 June - and will win a micro scooter and have their artwork displayed on a lamp post banner in South London for a year. Get creative!
* As it happens, the Environmental Audit Committee is the only formal Parliamentary outing that Louise had during her time as a civil servant, sitting alongside Rt Hon Justine Greening as Secretary of State for International Development in an inquiry about the Sustainable Development Goals in 2014.