Chair of APPG on Air Pollution responds to announcement of Clean Air Strategy

Geraint Davies MP, the newly-elected Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Air Pollution, responded to the launch of the Defra consultation on the draft Air Quality Strategy as follows:

“The UK Government is in the dock of European Court of Justice because 40,000 premature UK deaths are caused by air pollution each year. Despite this, Michael Gove is not taking the crisis seriously. He knows that, if we leave the EU, safeguards against toxic levels of air pollution will no longer be in place.

“We urgently need a Clean Air Act. Instead, the Government wants to hide the problem in an Environment Act and evade their responsibility to tackle a problem which already costs the economy £20 billion a year. We need to create a manufacturing environment which inspires cutting edge green technology for world-wide exports, not an out-dated industrial backwater with old machinery in chronic decay. Michael Gove should take this seriously for the sake of our environment, economy and public health.”