My Lords, I am grateful to everyone for their valuable contributions to this debate. To answer directly the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, I say that this is not about a lack of ambition. I have had many opportunities to speak in the House on this issue and I share entirely noble Lords’ ambition to achieve it, but we have to comply
with the law. That is why the regret amendment, praying in aid 5 micrograms per cubic metre, is not achievable.
The World Health Organization is entirely right to push countries to be ever more ambitious, but we have to comply with Section 4 of the Environment Act. To do that, anybody who is in government or aspires to government cannot just stand up and say, “We want to achieve more”, in the full knowledge that it is impossible. We would therefore be breaking the law and I am not prepared to do that. However, I entirely accept that there are real and genuine concerns and I want our Environment Act, which is world-leading, to deliver ever greener and more environmentally friendly measures.
The EU is also mentioned in the regret amendment and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, is absolutely right: it seeks to achieve 5 micrograms per cubic metre, but we have to achieve the target that we set. We cannot just pluck one out that sounds good and makes the Government look as if they are listening to every single campaigner who wants a reduction, quite understandably. We want to produce a target that we can achieve, and we can set out clearly how we are going to do it.
To say that Ministers have somehow fiddled with the evidence to be less ambitious, for whatever reason, is absolute nonsense. The suite of targets that we consulted on was the result of significant scientific evidence, collected and developed over preceding years, and included input from evidence partners and independent experts, supported by over 800 pages of published evidence. We have full confidence in the final suite of targets, which represents a robust analysis of that. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said that this was a pessimistic view, but in government you can set a target and seek to achieve it before the date. We think we can get to the low-hanging fruit and show a trajectory much earlier than the date of 2040.
8.30 pm
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, also spoke of issues relating to monitors. Our evidence indicates that 11 micrograms per cubic metre is likely to be achievable by 2030 but will still be challenging. While reducing maximum concentrations by a further 1 microgram may seem numerically nominal, in reality it becomes increasingly difficult to reduce concentrations as levels are lowered. Incremental reductions will be required across a range of sectors, many of which will take time and a long-term investment to implement.
I entirely understand the point that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, made. I lived for two years in an industrial city where every day my clothes stank of coal dust when I got home. If you go to that city now, you do not get that. Enormous improvements have been made but they cannot just be done by government. They have to be achieved using local actors, principally local government, the Highways Agency and others, to really drill down on the point that the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, made about the hotspots. That is where we really have to concentrate.
I know that vast parts of England are already well below 10 micrograms, but there are places that are not. The target is for them all to achieve this, and that is
really difficult. If you look at a map of the measurements of PM10, you can see quite clearly where it is. We are sitting right in the middle of it here. There is not an ounce of complacency about this. We want to achieve something that is not just going to look good in a headline, but that is achievable, challenging and stretches people. The conclusions of our modelling are consistent with this.
Reaching 10 milligrams per cubic metre by 2030 would be very challenging. That is due to locations in large urban areas, such as London, which pose the challenges of deliverability. In setting a legally binding target, the Secretary of State, as I have said, must be satisfied that the target can be met. While the target is set for 2040, that does not mean that action to meet the target will be delayed. Our upcoming environmental improvement plan will establish interim targets and actions to meet them to set a clear pathway. That will be of comfort to people who want to make sure that we are pushing this as far as we can.
I am conscious of the time, so I will just rattle through points. I make the commitment to write on points I do not get to. I do not know how much it costs for the consultation and how much time is spent, but we do a lot of consultations. Some argue that we do too much, but I think it is better to err on that side. We have some very clever social scientists who manage it. I assure the noble Baroness that they are robust in their modelling and the way they approach this. Air-quality modelling is an important tool and will continue to be used for informing the development of policies to achieve these targets and understand the relationship between emissions from different sources. Concentrations of PM2.5 are not as spatially variable as nitrous oxide, which was a very important point made by the noble Lord, Lord Tope.
While there can still be local hotspots, the expansion of the monitoring network will provide greater coverage across the country. The new minimum requirements are for up to 100 new monitors to be installed on the network. They will not be in the middle of the Lake District or Suffolk; they will be in areas where we really need to know how we are dealing with this. As part of our work to assess and progress towards the targets, we have invested £1 million to expand the PM2.5 monitoring network this year. By the end of 2025 we will have invested a further £10 million to at least double the size of the original PM2.5 network, adding well over 100 monitoring stations. As I have said, we have over 500 sites across the UK, and I have seen the data. It is precise and shows us where the problems are. We will spend a further £9 million running and maintaining 14 national networks.
I am conscious of the time, and I will start hearing grumbles. I want noble Lords to understand that I would like to pluck out every achievable target we have measured and make this Government and future Governments entirely accountable for their delivery. However, we have to do it in a way that is legal—that is within the law. If the Secretary of State of any Government chose targets that were not achievable, a lawyers’ frenzy would result.
If the noble Baroness were able to get the Government of the day to stop a particular activity that was polluting at PM2.5, those behind that activity would be able to
take that Government to court and say, “You are not obeying the law. The law says your targets should be achievable”. As these targets are not achievable, we do not want to create a feeding frenzy for lawyers. The target, alongside the suite of Environment Act targets, will ensure that we meet our commitment and leave the environment in a better state than we found it. I commend these draft regulations to the House.