Cleaner air for Europe

Speech delivered on Mon 25th Sep 2006

Mr President, I am not on the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety but, like Mr Bowis, I represent London, the city traditionally known as the 'Big Smoke'. London's air today is still very polluted and is amongst the worst of any city in Europe. EU air pollution limits are significantly exceeded along London's major road network, in Central London and around Heathrow Airport, where nitrogen dioxide is 50% above the limit, due to a combination of aeroplanes and vehicles.

I welcome much that is positive in the new proposals and the Krahmer report, such as the streamlining of the law, greater public accessibility to monitoring results, new limits for fine particulates and stricter ones for other pollutants. However, I am very concerned about the effect in my city of postponing the deadlines, perhaps until 2018 instead of 2010, for hot spots.

Londoners would be asked to trust the British Government or the Mayor of London to seek postponement when it is genuinely impossible to meet the 2010 deadlines. However, surely it comes down to political will to cut road and air traffic. One barrier between the UK Government and its goal of bulldozing through a third runway at Heathrow is EU air-quality limits, in particular nitrogen dioxide. I fear a long postponement will allow it to wriggle round those limits.

I am surprised and somewhat disappointed that MEPs are being less progressive than EU governments, at least on the issue of deadlines. It is the first time in seven years in this House that I have found the Council more progressive than the European Parliament. I hope, for the sake of Londoners, that we will stick to deadlines that are as tight as possible.