.........
The
proceedings are reported in the language in which they were spoken
in the committee. In addition, a transcription of the simultaneous
interpretation is included. Where contributors have supplied
corrections to their evidence, these are noted in the
transcript.
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Dechreuodd y cyfarfod am 09:31.
The meeting began at 09:31.
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Ansawdd Aer yng Nghymru
Air Quality in
Wales
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[1]
Mark Reckless: We will commence. We have Peter Oates who,
for one moment, we’re trying to locate, and may be running
late. But, I think, with the witnesses we have, we would like to
commence what, initially, will be a one-off session on air quality:
an important issue, but the first time that this committee has
addressed the area. If I could ask witnesses to start by telling
the committee what you consider to be the key issues affecting air
quality in Wales. Should I start with you, Isobel?
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[2]
Ms Moore: Thank you, bore da. In answer to the question,
what I wanted to do firstly was to direct you to the statutory duty
that Natural Resources Wales has in terms of producing ‘The
State of Natural Resources Report’, which was first issued
back in September. Within that, we considered all of the ecosystems
in Wales and the different land-management types, be it woodlands,
all the way to mountains and urban areas. There’s a section
in there that considers air quality. I wanted to take the main key
points with regard to air quality from that report to highlight to
you this morning.
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[3]
Firstly, in terms of nitrogen dioxide, this is one of the
pollutants that has been identified as in exceedance of the
European Union limit value, along with polyaromatic hydrocarbons
and also nickel. Also, from a local air quality management
perspective, approximately 40 local air quality management areas
have been declared. Of those, the majority—all of them but
one—are in relation to nitrogen dioxide. The other one is
with regard to particulate matter sub 10 microns. In terms of other
areas that were highlighted within the report, some of the
reduction in pollutants such as sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and
PM10s over the last 30 to 40 years has been as a consequence of
changes in regulation, reductions in industrial sources; so whilst
the underlying trend is reduction from those particular pollutants,
as I’ve already indicated, there are clearly some hotspots in
Wales where those pollutants are a particular issue.
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[4]
Ozone was also highlighted, whereby, again, there’s been an
overall reduction in ozone levels over the past 30 years,
particularly for peak levels. But, again, there is still an
increase in background levels of 0.2 micrograms per metre cubed on
an annual basis, and there are three sites in Wales that have
exceeded the objectives in previous years. Those are the main areas
that I think, perhaps, should be of focus in terms of factual
evidence as to what air quality is like in Wales currently.
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[5]
Mark Reckless: Thank you, and can I ask, are there any
additional areas that you would emphasise over and above what
we’ve heard from Isobel?
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[6]
Ms Whitfield: I think, with my focus on the natural
environment, I’d like to reinforce the issue of—. The
key issue there is nitrogen deposition. So, that arises from
emissions of oxides of nitrogen and ammonia. In terms of the
natural environment, we’re interested in exposure to
concentrations of these gases, just as we are for human health, but
also in terms of the deposition of those. That might be through wet
deposition or through dry deposition. Emissions of these gases can
be transported long distances from their source and cause impacts
at large distances from those. So, in Wales, we’ll have high
deposition in upland areas associated with long-range transport
pollution and depositions through rainfall. So, there are, in Wales
and across the UK, widespread impacts of air pollution,
particularly nitrogen deposition, on habitats, biodiversity and the
services that ecosystems provide. Another key point is ozone,
mentioned by my colleague, and that reduces growth and yield of
vegetation. So, it has an impact on crop yields, for example, and
horticulture.
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[7]
Mark Reckless: And Paul, do you have a particular
perspective that you would like to add on the general issues facing
us in Wales?
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[8]
Mr Willis: So, from my perspective, in managing the air
quality database for Wales and the Air Quality in Wales website, my
perspective is more about public health and public information, and
the major health concerns over the impact of particulate matter
2.5, where we’ve assessed that there are 1,300 additional
deaths across Wales each year due to the impact of PM2.5, and
nitrogen dioxide, where there are 1,150 additional deaths each year
across Wales. The concern is really over the trends in the levels
of those pollutants. PM2.5 is coming down, but there’s not
really any safe level of that pollutant. It has an impact, even at
lower levels. Because of the concerns, particularly over diesel
motor vehicles and their control of their emissions—or the
lack of control of their emissions in the real world—nitrogen
dioxide concentrations simply aren’t coming down as we would
expect them to. We need to publish the evidence through the
database and assess those trends in the future, and then consider
how we can address the public health impacts.
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[9]
Mark Reckless: Could I ask you on the relative waste, the
nitrogen dioxide emissions and the particulates at 2.5 microns? Can
you explain to me the different health impacts and the relative
importance of the nitrogen dioxide versus the PM2.5? And also, help
me with the issue of the PM2.5; I think the other way they look at
it is the PM10. Is it those larger particles or is it the smaller
PM2.5 that are more of a risk to human health?
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[10]
Mr Willis: In terms of the particles, it’s the smaller
ones that are really of most concern—the ones that can get
further down into the lungs and cause irritation. The really small
ones can pass across into the bloodstream and carry other toxic
chemicals to parts of the body where they can cause nasty effects.
The health impact of particles has been known for a very long time.
It’s been known that they have a measurable health impact.
Nitrogen dioxide: although we’ve had limit values to comply
with, the actual health impact related to nitrogen dioxide has been
difficult to separate from the other pollutants, which tend to be
emitted in parallel—so, the particles. It’s only
recently, in the last two to three years, that health impact has
been assessed against nitrogen dioxide in particular, but that is
now of equal concern, really. As I said, 1,300 additional deaths
from PM versus 1,150 due to nitrogen dioxide. So, although
that’s a more—
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[11]
Simon Thomas: Are those Wales or UK figures?
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[12]
Mr Willis: Those are for Wales.
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[13]
Mark Reckless: Can you just say those figures once again, as
well, please?
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[14]
Mr Willis: Around 1,300 for PM2.5, and I think it’s
1,150 for nitrogen dioxide, additional deaths, or deaths brought
forward across Wales each year.
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[15]
Mark Reckless: Thank you. I would like to say that
translation is available on channel 1, should it be required. Can I
hand over to Simon Thomas?
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[16]
Simon Thomas: Thank you, Chair. Just a couple of questions,
if I may, around the relationship between the UK and the Welsh
Government on air quality, because there’s a shared
responsibility. There are a lot of European directives, and the UK
is the member state, but we are the ones that have to do the
monitoring and the regulation. So, I think specifically for Natural
Resources at this stage. There was an important High Court ruling
last November brought by ClientEarth that said that the UK
Government had failed to tackle air pollution, particularly around
these emissions, throughout the UK, including, I understand, four
non-compliant zones in Wales. The High Court judge said that the
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’s
five-year modelling was inconsistent with taking measures to
improve pollution. So, I wondered what steps have been taken by
Natural Resources Wales, in conjunction with the Welsh Government,
to tackle these non-compliant zones and the levels in Wales since
that ruling last November.
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[17]
Ms Moore: It’s helpful in terms of clarifying the
various roles, I think, as you say, that many parties play a part
in terms of the overall air quality perspective. So, the competent
authority for the air quality directives is Welsh Government, as
you say; for local air quality management, the competent authority
is the local authority. In terms of our responsibilities at Natural
Resources Wales, we are responsible for issuing permits that meet
the requirements of the industrial emissions directive and
previously the large combustion plant directive. We do this through
the environmental permitting regime environmental regulations that
were issued in 2010. Now, within those requirements, it is
incumbent on us to ensure that any permit that we issue is
protective to communities, health and the environment of Wales. We
refer to the best available techniques document—or BREF
document—which is produced by Europe, which sets out the
techniques that should be employed by installations, and also the
limit values that should be contained within permits. So,
therefore, the permits that we issue refer to and are compliant
with the European directives, both from an industrial emissions
directive perspective, and also from an air quality limit value
perspective, and that continues to be the case.
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[18]
Simon Thomas: Can I ask you how do you tackle a conflict,
therefore, if what you set out is the case—and I’m sure
it is—when we look at somewhere like Aberthaw, which has been
found in the European Court of justice, through a case against the
UK Government, to be breaking air pollution levels in breach of
what would have been the large combustion plant directive, but yet
is still permitted under your regime to be making these emissions,
and that case said that the emissions were unsatisfactory and
breaking the directive? How do we reconcile these two regimes if
you have a court of justice saying there’s been a breach of
the law, yet the permitting regime still allows that plant to
operate? How does that work in terms of managing air quality in
Wales?
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[19]
Ms Moore: At the point at which the permit was in existence,
prior to the European court judgment case, the UK was of the view,
as we were of the view, that the permit actually met the
requirements of the large combustion plant directive. It’s
only subsequent to that decision that, as an organisation
that’s the independent regulator for industry within Wales,
we have a look at that permit and consider the implications of the
European court judgment, and make sure that we rectify that
position. So, we have written to RWE to indicate that we will vary
the permit based on the European court judgment, and that we seek
information from them to allow us to do that. So, we’re
currently waiting for that information, but any permit that then is
varied will meet the requirements of what was the large combustion
plant directive and now the industrial emissions directive, and
will take account of the European limit values, and have regard to
the air quality objectives, which is the UK legislation. So, in
that way, the two regimes are reconciled.
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[20]
Simon Thomas: So, since the
judgment last September, you would have written to the company, but
no reply yet, therefore no action yet, and so we are technically,
at least, in breach still, I would suggest. But where does the
responsibility, ultimately, for this lie now? Is it with the UK
Government, with yourselves as the permitting regime, or is it with
the Welsh Government as the overall statutory body in Wales that
looks after air quality?
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[21]
Ms Moore: Our responsibility is in relation to the permit that
will be issued with regard to the industrial emissions
directive, and so, therefore, we will be in the process, and are in
the process, of varying that permit to meet the requirements of the
European court judgment.
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09:45
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[22]
Simon Thomas: And just a wider question to finish, if I
may—others may want to comment on this one—because, in
looking at this case, I was struck by work that Greenpeace and
Friends of the Earth had done, which said that pollution from
Aberthaw—and I think they were using the figures that you
gave the committee earlier of early or premature deaths in Wales
from pollutants, and, looking at the excess discovered by the court
case in the European Court of Justice, they estimated that the
pollution from Aberthaw was responsible for curtailing the lives of
67 people in Wales every year, equivalent to 64 per cent of the
death toll on Welsh roads. I just wondered, from the witnesses,
whether you recognised those figures or accepted them as a
reasonable estimate of the cost of the operation of Aberthaw at the
moment. We’ll start with you—I’ve been asking you
questions, but others may want to come in on this.
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[23]
Ms Moore: What I would say is that when we vary a permit or
when we issue a permit, as we’re not health professionals, we
ensure that we consult with Public Health Wales to provide us with
the advice that we would need to ensure that the permit
is—
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[24]
Simon Thomas: And has that happened in this case?
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[25]
Ms Moore: That would have happened in this case when the
permit was originally issued.
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[26]
Simon Thomas: So, that needs to re-happen now with the
reissuing.
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[27]
Ms Moore: When we vary the permit, we will ensure that we
consult with Public Health Wales.
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[28]
Simon Thomas: I don’t know if I can invite you,
because you gave the figures earlier, but I just wondered whether
that squared up with what you told the committee earlier.
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[29]
Mr Willis: Those figures will be based on the health impact
of the particular pollutant emissions, and if that’s how the
emissions from Aberthaw map to the excess deaths—. I’m
not familiar with that particular case, but I guess that’s
how they will have been calculated.
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[30]
Simon Thomas: I believe that is how they were calculated,
yes.
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[31]
Mark Reckless: Conceptually, would it be—? It was 67
extra deaths—
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[32]
Simon Thomas: Sixty-seven, yes.
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[33]
Mark Reckless: Would that, conceptually, be within the 1,150
or the 1,250 you mentioned for nitrogen dioxide and particulates
earlier?
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[34]
Mr Willis: Yes, because the figures I gave were for the
whole of Wales, so that will have been extracted for that
particular case.
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[35]
Simon Thomas: I believe these figures relate to nitrogen
oxides, not particulates. I don’t think it’s the
particulates.
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[36]
Mark Reckless: So, would I be right to infer from that that
the contribution of Aberthaw to our carbon dioxide emissions would
be a much higher proportion than it would be to the nitrogen
dioxide and particulates that you’re emphasising the health
risks of in what you said now?
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[37]
Mr Willis: I’m not sure on the carbon dioxide
emissions, to be honest. Can you comment on that?
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[38]
Ms Moore: I don’t have the information at my
fingertips, unfortunately.
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[39]
Mark Reckless: Can I bring in Jenny Rathbone, please?
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[40]
Jenny Rathbone: Now that we've got the Well-being of Future
Generations (Wales) Act 2015, to what extent do you think policies
are being integrated between local authorities, public services
boards and other organisations that have a duty to tackle air
pollution?
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[41]
Ms Moore: The public services boards that you mention have
been in place since the start of the financial year, and this is a
really good opportunity to ensure we get that integration across
local authorities, ourselves, public health boards and local health
boards, so that things like air quality are considered. I think
this is a really good opportunity, particularly for those sources
that are more diffuse in nature. Certainly, regulation has been in
place for things like heavy industry, which has shown a
demonstrable decrease in things like nitrogen dioxide and sulphur
dioxide since the 1970s. But, for those other sources that are more
diffuse in nature, such as from transport and from domestic
sources, this will be an opportunity to get the right people around
the table to make sure that things are looked at a local level in
relation to area statements, for example, and that the right things
can be put in place to try and meet those requirements.
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[42]
Jenny Rathbone: So, when we’re planning major new
projects like a new hospital at Cwmbran or the siting of a new
school—not next to a major road, one hopes—to what
extent do all the parties that need to be involved actually get
involved at an early stage to avoid disasters?
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[43]
Ms Moore: I don’t know if Peter wants to come in on
that point from a local authority perspective.
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[44]
Mr Oates: As a local authority officer, as an environmental
health officer, we are certainly consulted on all such major plans
and then we would require certain conditions to be imposed. For
example, the hospital in Torfaen, which is my borough, required an
air quality impact assessment to be performed prior to permission
being given and also a health impact assessment of what increases
of emissions would be from the plant associated with the hospital.
Again, for a school, we would be
looking for impact assessments, if necessary, certainly if
they were by a major road, and we monitor close to schools whenever
possible as well to see what the levels of pollution are from
traffic.
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[45]
Jenny Rathbone:
Okay, but it hasn’t happened in the
past, because I’ve got two schools sited next to an area of
unacceptable levels of air pollution, and probably a lot more as
well. So, exactly how we—. Having done these assessments,
what then happens? Are the public transport routes put in so that
we can ensure that people can get to places that are going to be
regularly visited because of the service they’re
providing?
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[46]
Mr Oates: Hopefully that would be done.
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[47]
Jenny Rathbone:
‘Hopefully’?
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[48]
Mr Oates: Yes. I’m just one cog in this wheel.
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[49]
Jenny Rathbone:
Fair enough.
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[50]
Mr Oates: I make my opinions clear to the planners and
hopefully they take that on board as part of the permission
that’s given. There are conflicts there sometimes, for
example, if you’re looking for a new housing estate, because
there’s a requirement for new housing, yet that housing
estate has an effect on increasing traffic on a particular road, so
then a balance has to be found between the need for that housing
and the inevitable raising of levels of road pollution in those
areas.
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[51]
Jenny Rathbone:
But the future generations Act is about
joining this up. We shouldn’t be allowing any housing unless
it’s got transport links involved.
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[52]
Mr Oates: Absolutely. I welcome the future generations Act and
hopefully that will help—
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[53]
Jenny Rathbone:
But, once again, you’re talking
about the future. Have we got any good examples at the moment of
where people are doing things differently because of the urgency of
tackling air pollution? That’s not specifically to you,
necessarily, but to other members of the panel.
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[54]
Ms Moore: What I would say in terms of the public services
boards is that they are still in the process, as they’ve only
been established at the start of the financial year, of bringing
the information together. Under the Environment (Wales) Act 2016,
we have a responsibility—Natural Resources Wales has a
responsibility—to put forward area statements that will use
some of the information from the State of Natural Resources Report,
which will allow localities to consider that environmental
information, such as air quality, as part of their considerations
in the public services boards. That report was produced in
September, so now is the time to be looking at that. Also,
there’s a consultation that Welsh Government has put out in
terms of the national policy statement in relation to the
environment Act, which will also help in terms of the thinking
process for public services boards.
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[55]
Jenny Rathbone:
What role do you have, if any, in
ensuring that planning authorities are aware of the importance of
air quality and planning to ensure that we’re not creating
new problems rather than designing out existing
pollution?
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[56]
Ms Moore: Certainly, we’re not responsible for the
monitoring of air quality. That sits with Welsh Government and also
local authorities. So, that information would be available, and is
available, on the webpages and so on for those considerations to
occur. We are a consultee with regard to planning applications, and
therefore we will put forward our information that we have to help
in terms of that thinking process.
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[57]
Jenny Rathbone:
Are there any evidence gaps in terms of
ensuring that public services boards and all the parties involved
are clear about the implications of taking a particular
decision?
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[58]
Mr Oates: I think that, at the moment, speaking from my
authority’s perspective, there’s been an
information-gathering period that’s going on for the review
of what we do, and the public services board has been bringing in
both professionals like myself and also residents of the borough
and finding out where those health inequalities lie, and where
they’re exacerbated by things like pollution and noise as
well, which is being looked at. So, we have been providing the
boards with information for them to make that review, and to
identify where there is a need for closer working between local
authority departments to mitigate potential problems before they
arise.
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[59]
Jenny Rathbone:
How long have you been doing this sort of
work?
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[60]
Mr Oates: This has only been going on, I would say, for the
past six months.
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[61]
Jenny Rathbone:
Okay, so this is new. So, in the past,
this has never happened before.
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[62]
Mr Oates: Nothing like the work that’s being done towards
the well-being Act, no.
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[63]
Jenny Rathbone:
Okay. All right, so the jury’s out
at the moment then. Because I’m not hearing anything terribly
reassuring in terms of how we’re going to prevent future
disasters happening in terms of the well-being and the health of
children, for example.
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[64]
Mr Willis: I think the evidence in terms of the air quality
measurements and the infrastructure that’s put in place under
the local air quality management regime is all there in terms of
understanding air quality. We have the evidence we need to know
where the problem areas are; it’s just a case of, as Peter
said, joining things between the environmental health officers and
the planners to make sure that air quality is the primary concern
when those new developments are going in to an air quality
management area and that those concerns are heard—and they
aren’t, always, at the minute. I think that’s fair to
say.
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[65]
Mr Oates: What’s become clear from the involvement
I’ve had is that we do need greater integration in local
authorities between planning, highways, environmental health,
countryside and the people in charge of green infrastructure. And
by working together more closely, then we’ll work
better.
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[66]
Jenny Rathbone: Okay, but
local authorities should be aware of the environment Act, the
active travel Act and the well-being of future generations Act;
what more do we need to do to ensure that we’ve got joined-up
decision making to really tackle air pollution, which, as
we’ve already heard, kills far more people than road traffic
accidents?
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[67]
Mr Oates: I think working towards progressing the well-being
Act is going to force local authorities into situations where we
will have to work better and in greater partnership with each
other. This is going to expose where those partnerships are weak
and, hopefully, the Act will force us to strengthen
them.
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[68]
Mark Reckless: Peter, looking at this joint partnership working, I
was interested—I think you said earlier that when the Aneurin
Bevan health board is doing a specialist critical care centre, it
then has to go to you as Torfaen borough council to do the health
impact assessment of building a hospital. How did that
work?
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[69]
Mr Oates: We require various studies to be done, for example a
health impact assessment or an air quality impact assessment. It
wouldn’t be us who would be doing those; they’d be the
consultants acting on behalf of the developer. And
then—
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[70]
Mark Reckless: But, conceptually, how do you do a health impact
assessment for building a big new hospital?
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[71]
Mr Oates: Well, you are looking at where health can be affected
by that building. So, you’re introducing additional traffic,
for example, into the road network around that building, you are
taking away some land as well. There are the residents who are
already living there. The health impact could be for any major
development—say, an industrial development as well.
It’s not really about the health of the hospital itself,
it’s the effect that will have on the health of the existing
environment and the residents in that environment.
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[72]
Mark Reckless: Okay. Back
to Jenny.
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[73]
Jenny Rathbone:
So what you’re saying is we spend
millions of pounds on an ill-health facility, a hospital, but
we’re going to blithely ignore the fact that we’re
going to create new traffic, rather than putting in the public
transport links to ensure we don’t create more
traffic.
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[74]
Mr Oates: They’re exactly the things that a health impact
assessment would highlight, I think: the need for an increased
green infrastructure around that area, a need for new traffic
routes and cycle routes, things like that.
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[75]
Jenny Rathbone: Well,
I’m sure your professionals are putting those points, but the
point is are they being heard and is the rest of the public sector
mitigating against increasing the air pollution problem?
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[76]
Mr Oates: That’s a good question.
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[77]
Mark Reckless: Can we have a south Wales metro stop at the SCCC,
please?
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[78]
Mr Oates: I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that.
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[79]
Mark Reckless: Can we
please have a south Wales metro stop at the SCCC as well as having
road accessibility on the edge of Cwmbran?
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[80]
Mr Oates: That’s an excellent solution.
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[81]
Jenny Rathbone: Have you
put that in your paper? [Laughter.]
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[82]
Mark Reckless: I wonder, could I perhaps request Torfaen council to
send a copy of that health impact assessment to this
committee? I think we’d be interested in looking through how
you did that assessment. Jayne.
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10:00
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[83]
Jayne Bryant: It was on the back of that; it’s just a
quick question: I wanted to talk about that one example of the
hospital. We’re looking at the health impact assessment
there, but does it also take into account, for example, with the
hospital, the fact that there would be more people moving from an
area—say, for example, in Newport, the Royal Gwent? Does it
take into account the health impact of people who will be,
hopefully, better off from a hospital moving somewhere else as
well, if you understand what I mean?
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[84]
Mr Oates: It looks at all pros and cons.
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[85]
Jayne Bryant: So, it would look at that idea as well.
Brilliant.
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[86]
Mr Oates: It balances them, yes.
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[87]
Jayne Bryant: Great, thank you.
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[88]
Mark Reckless: We’ll tackle the well-being of future
generations Act and its implications, but one specific question on
the national indicator on nitrogen dioxide: Paul, you were saying
to us earlier that evidence on nitrogen dioxide had only come more
recently and that you’re particularly concerned about the
small particulates. Is it appropriate to have just the nitrogen
dioxide as the indicator for the Act or should we be supplementing
or replacing that with the small particulates you described?
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[89]
Mr Willis: There was a consultation on the indicator, it was
widely discussed at the Welsh Air Quality Forum and it was agreed
that nitrogen dioxide had the most evidence available to provide
that indicator. Nitrogen dioxide is probably measured at the
largest number of locations across Wales and therefore that
provided the most robust evidence to produce that indicator.
That’s the reason why.
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[90]
Mark Reckless: Can I bring in Huw?
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[91]
Huw Irranca-Davies: Could I just pick up on that, both in
terms of the minutiae of the plans and what is being monitored, but
also how that’s reflected in the air quality strategy at a UK
level? There has been criticism, not least from the Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs Committee at the UK Parliament. They gave a
bit of a drubbing to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for
her evidence to that committee. In fact, she acknowledged that
there was more to be done. Do you think that these issues of the
wider air pollutants should be reflected more, and not simply in
the monitoring—because as Paul Willis has said, we have the
evidence and we’re monitoring it—but actually in the
strategy, as well as the plans on what we need to tackle?
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[92]
Ms Moore: There’s been a recent consultation by Welsh
Government, looking at local air quality management, and within
that there are proposals for when the reporting occurs for local
authorities as to whether or not they need to declare an air
quality management area and then the plans that are in place once
they’ve declared, and that also, those local authorities that
are going through the process of making that assessment—that
not only should they consider the eight pollutants that are within
the air quality strategy, but in particular that they should focus
on the PM2.5s and PM10s and also nitrogen dioxide. If those are
seen to be the most important, then those are the things that
should be reported on an annual basis.
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[93]
So, the consultation closed at the end of December, and I
understand that Welsh Government officials are considering the
responses to that. But certainly there seems to be implied from
that there needs to be a recognition of those more concerning
pollutants.
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[94]
Huw Irranca-Davies: So, can I ask what implications that has
for the overall UK air strategy, which I think dates back to 2007?
Is it now fit for purpose? What you’re saying there is that
what we’re doing on the ground at a Wales level and in a
local authority is actually running well ahead of what’s in
the air quality strategy. Should we just discard that now and say,
‘Well, that’s irrelevant; we’re doing better
stuff on the ground’? Does that need to be updated?
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[95]
Mr Moore: That proposal is linked to the air quality
strategy, so the air quality objectives and limits that are
contained within that strategy are based on the health information
that has been considered on a European and World Health
Organization level, and those objectives and limit values are set
to meet those requirements. So, the proposal in the consultation,
as I understand it, is really to allow local authorities to focus
their resources on the ones that they deem to be most important, as
set out within the overarching strategy.
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[96]
Huw Irranca-Davies: Tell me if I’m mixing up apples
and pears here, but when the EFRA committee called, in December,
for a comprehensive air quality strategy, containing priority
measures to protect the public from the invisible threats of air
pollution covering all of the aspects from all sectors—all
air pollutants—John Hayes replied that it may be better to
develop a more comprehensive strategy covering all those pollutants
from all sectors. Am I missing something here? Because he seems to
be acknowledging that a strategy is needed now that broadens the
remit to cover all of those air pollutants in all the sectors.
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[97]
Ms Moore: As it currently stands, there are eight pollutants
within the air quality strategy, which is on a UK basis. So, I
guess it would be for Welsh Government to consider, in light of
that evidence and also the evidence you provide, as to whether
anything further needs to be undertaken.
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[98]
Huw Irranca-Davies: Okay, thank you for that. We’ve
touched on the issue of legislation, as well, that underpins this.
Does anybody feel that there is any need for any further
legislation? Or have we got all the tools that we need?
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[99]
Mr Oates: I think the legislation is satisfactory. I think
that local air quality management could be changed and improved
within the existing legislation. I thought a colleague, Huw Brunt,
might be here from Public Health Wales, but I can’t see him.
I know what he would say: that although we have limits for
pollutants such as oxides of nitrogen, there’s no safe level
of those pollutants. To have an arbitrary limit where—. For
example, if you take the air quality management area in Hafodyrynys
in Caerphilly, which is a terrible area, the population
exposure—the level of population there—is fairly small,
whereas you may have a conurbation that is exposed to a level that
is below the limit, but has got a higher level of population. So,
shouldn’t we really be looking, instead of having these
arbitrary limits, at population levels of exposure, as opposed to
where somebody said ‘Well that’s the line there’?
Well, that isn’t the line, really—we know there’s
no safe level.
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[100] Huw
Irranca-Davies: I only have one final question, and it relates
back to the UK strategy, again. One of the things that, in more
recent years, has come onto the agenda is the issue of indoor air
pollution. Should that feature within the strategy? Because it
currently doesn’t.
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[101] Mr Oates:
That’s a very tricky one to enforce—you’re
looking at people’s lifestyles—
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[102] Huw
Irranca-Davies: It is a very tricky one. As you know,
it’s been observed that, if you’re in somebody’s
living room underneath the Heathrow air flights, or alternatively
alongside the Old Kent Road, or alternatively, in a Wales concept,
in the Hafod or wherever—. Is there something—?
What’s your expert feeling as to whether this should now be
included?
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[103]
Jenny Rathbone:
Westgate Street, in the city centre of
Cardiff, has very high levels of air pollution because of all the
buses. So, should we be monitoring what all those residents are
breathing in?
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[104]
Mr Oates: There’s no current process for doing that. I
think that that possibly could be done on a project level, just
initially, to see what we’d be up against, and how that might
be feasible. Obviously, people’s lifestyles come into play
there as well and also housing quality is an issue, because of poor
quality housing and the air quality that that causes, in terms of
damp and mould and spores and thing like that. So, that’s
quite a gnarly subject.
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[105]
Huw Irranca-Davies:
It is. It’s interesting you touch
on a project approach to this, and maybe that is a way to do it.
The other aspect here is more open-source monitoring, which is an
innovative new field where you set up a network of people who
self-monitor. It does have a value. It’s not the same as an
authority-led approach to monitoring, but it could help us in
understanding what’s going on with indoor air quality as
well.
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[106] Mark Reckless: It’s become
commonplace in major cities in China for families to have
replacement filters, even—it’s quite
expensive—but, essentially, having machines in people’s
living rooms that filter out at least some of these particulates.
Is the problem actually so severe in Wales, despite the efforts of
various organisations, that that’s something, for people in
high-pollution areas, you would recommend they do? Anyone want to
comment on that?
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[107] Mr Oates:
If you take an intelligence-led approach to that and get the data
first and see whether there’s a problem that needs
addressing, like, say, a project, it could be applied by
identifying an area where you think there is a problem, see if
there is a problem, and then asses means of dealing with it.
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[108] Mark
Reckless: We’ve referred to one area in Caerphilly. I
just wonder if some of our constituents have an expectation that
Government will act to protect them at least from the highest
levels of exposure. Where it fails to do that, should we not, as
Government, be looking to support these types of interventions,
which might at least mitigate the exposure for people in their
living areas?
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[109] Mr Oates:
I think that’s worth pursuing.
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[110] Mark
Reckless: Can I go to David Melding, when he’s ready.
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[111] David
Melding: I’d just like to look at the air-quality
approach. I want to ask a fundamental question, really, because it
seems that current planning is around identifying those areas of
high risk and then putting strategies in place. But we know that
there are more health impacts in areas—in the totality,
anyway—that occur outside those key, high-risk areas. I just
wonder if our approach shouldn’t be a general one followed up
by more in-depth action in those high-risk areas.
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[112] Ms Moore:
Again, the Welsh Government consultation, out just before
Christmas, asked a very similar question in terms of this
recognition that there needs to be reduction of pollutants to meet
the objectives or the limit values, but that perhaps the proposal
should be to consider how air quality can be looked at to be
reduced in its totality. Certainly, the proposition there, under
the local air quality management scheme, was for local authorities,
as part of that, to be reporting, potentially, on an annual basis,
not only with regard to the specific hotspots, or where monitors
are currently in place, but what could be done for the totality of
the location.
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[113] David
Melding: Any other views?
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[114] Mr
Willis: At the European and national level, there is a
population exposure reduction target for PM2.5 particles measured
at background locations across the country. That responsibility has
not yet passed down to the local authority level for PM2.5, so
that’s a target that is assessed at the national level, with
relatively few numbers of monitoring stations for that particular
pollutant. As we said earlier, PM2.5 is one of the real concerns in
terms of health impact.
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[115] Mr
Whitfield: I think it’s useful to comment that ammonia,
which is principally from rural sources—agricultural
livestock production—is a significant contributor to
background PM2.5. So, if you’re looking at more diffuse
sources at regional levels, then it’s important to consider
that source and that pollutant.
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[116] David
Melding: To take this further, given that our current strategy,
which has been in place since the early 1990s, has been to identify
high-risk areas—. Of the 40 air quality management areas, I
don’t know if any have ever been revoked—very few have.
[Laughter.] You know, we don’t seem to be terribly
successful, do we, with this approach?
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10:15
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[117]
Mr Oates: It’s very difficult in some areas to find
something that works. We’re fortunate in Torfaen not to have
any, but certainly, on the Welsh air quality forum, we discuss
these and the ones that do exist in Wales. My colleagues tell
me—. We have our meetings with all the stakeholders, we have
our action plans and we try and come up with a strategy to reduce
the levels in these air quality management areas so they’re
below the stipulated limits. But, at the end of the day,
there’s only so many things you can do when you have a
situation that is already pre-existing through the architecture,
the road network, and the amount of people on that road network.
Unless you have the money to do something like precinct St Mary
Street, which is isn’t possible, say, in the centre of Usk or
Hafodyrynys, what are you left with? What are the tools in your box
to deal with those breaches? In Hafodyrynys, it almost seems like
the cheapest way to get rid of that air quality management area
would be to buy the houses that people live in there and move them
somewhere else, and get rid of the receptors. As ridiculous as that
may seem, it’s probably the cheapest way to deal with that
area. So, we are frustrated, as environmental health officers and
air quality professionals, in the tools that we have to deal with
existing problems.
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[118] David
Melding: It’s interesting, actually. I think it’s
useful to raise something as profound as that. It’s not very
practical, obviously, but at least you are confronting people with
the sorts of choices that they would have to make if we were to get
real change. I mean, I would rather look at the whole issue of
traffic management, because it does seem to me that most of these
areas remain in this category because of congested traffic,
over-use of cars and a lack of public transport options and such
like. At least then you would be giving politicians a chance
to—. You know, if it’s important to identify these
areas and say we should have plans to improve air quality, then
these are some of the things that have to be considered in the
public space.
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[119] Mr Oates:
I’d agree.
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[120] Jenny
Rathbone: Chair, could you just explain what is the cause of
the very high levels of pollution in Hafodyrynys?
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[121] Mr Oates:
It’s kind of a perfect storm, really, of having a canyon
effect of houses, so that the pollutants don’t disperse
particularly easily. So, there is a very steep hill with a junction
at the bottom, and it has a lot of heavy goods vehicles driving up
there at certain times of the day, when it gets very congested. And
so you get diesel vehicles with heavy loading on their engines
going up a hill in a canyon effect of houses. That’s a kind
of similar situation that we see in many air quality management
areas in Wales.
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[122] Jenny
Rathbone: Okay, so short of buying up all the houses and
finding somewhere else for these people to live, there is no other
solution.
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[123] Mr Oates:
It’s very difficult without creating an extremely expensive
bypass to the area. Yes, I mean, the options are very limited in
situations like Hafodyrynys.
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[124] David
Melding: But plans ought to be presented: you know, if you want
to change within five years, X, Y and Z would need to be done, or a
10-year or 20-year plan, or whatever it is. Because these areas
have been identified for decades. It’s not as if we’ve
suddenly realised this. I’m not sure what the value is of us
as politicians discussing these things is if you never get to the
fundamentals. We may not make the choices then, but at least we are
faced with them.
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[125] I’d like
to move on now to the Welsh Government’s consultation on
local air quality and noise pollution as well, and just ask for
your reflections, you know, on what seem to be the core elements in
this consultation. I’d appreciate your views on the
advisability of these, and if you have got any further knowledge of
the consultation responses, that would be helpful as well, but you
may not have that. The Welsh Government is examining a more
streamlined system. I think one of you has already referred to
reporting limits that are likely to be changed from three years to
one year. Local authorities combining on their
reports—that’s interesting; both to produce more
effective reports and perhaps to limit the range of evidence and be
more selective. The Welsh Government has come out with a template
for these reports and is—you know, perhaps reflecting on my
first question—looking at wider areas with the objective of
achieving better health outcomes generally. How is that
consultation going? Again, is the outcome going to be some pretty
precise recommendations in terms of what needs to be done if we are
going to get real change?
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[126] Mr Oates:
From an officer’s perspective, the consultation’s being
considered by all-Wales expert panel, which is part of the Welsh
heads of environmental health group, and they’ve issued a
detailed response from that group to the Welsh Government. Certain
things were welcomed—I have it here. I can’t summarise
the response very quickly, but, for example, collaboration between
authorities on writing their reports is welcomed, and certainly
from a Torfaen prospective, where we work in partnership with
Blaenau Gwent now on environmental health and those public health
services, it’s likely that we will combine our reports and
that’s going to reduce some of their resources burden
slightly. And other specific questions in that consultation are
welcomed within our response. We are a little bit iffy about the
penalties for late reporting because there are many and varied
reasons why that happens. And we think there should be a bit more
leeway there. I can let the committee have a copy of this.
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[127] David
Melding: That would be useful.
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[128] Mr Oates:
It’s available to copy now or I can send an electronic
copy.
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[129] David
Melding: Do any of the other witnesses have any comments on
this?
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[130] Ms Moore:
Our role with regard to local air quality management is limited
from a monitoring perspective, but clearly we’d be part of
the public service boards in terms of provision of information. One
of the roles that we do have in terms of supporting local
authorities is that whatever information that we do have from an
industrial perspective we are able to submit, so that local
authorities can consider. And also, we offer modelling services so
that some of the flow and impact of air quality pollutants can be
considered.
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[131] I think
it’s helpful that there is that section at the end of the
consultation that asks whether there’s anything further that
could be considered with regard to improving air quality. And
certainly, in terms of—there’s domestic legislation and
European legislation, and it may be something in the longer term to
consider how that comes together in some ways, so that you have one
single piece of air quality legislation for Wales.
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[132] Mark
Reckless: Hasn’t domestic and European legislation
promoted the use of diesel cars? They went up, I think, from 10 per
cent to 50 per cent between 1995 and 2012, according to the Society
of Manufacturers and Motor Traders. And I understand that was
driven by concerns about global warming and carbon dioxide
emissions. Gordon Brown said in 1998:
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[133]
‘diesel cars should attract
less vehicle tax than their petrol equivalents because of their
better CO2 performance’.
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[134] Isn’t
that, to a significant degree, what has driven the problems that
we’ve been speaking about this morning?
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[135] Ms Moore:
It’s very difficult for me to say, because our remit
doesn’t relate to transport. It’s purely in terms of
the regulation of large industrial sources. It’s hard for me
to have a view as to whether the legislation is right for
transport.
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[136] Mark
Reckless: Perhaps our other witnesses could comment.
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[137] Mr
Willis: From my perspective, that’s absolutely the
biggest problem in delivering improvements in local air quality.
With hindsight, that was a big mistake—to promote diesel
vehicles in that way. The expectation was that the technology that
was put in place to reduce the particulate emissions would solve
that problem, but the unexpected consequence was the additional
nitrogen dioxide emissions, which is not factored into these
long-term plans that have been put in place.
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[138]
Simon Thomas: Plus the manufacturers lied to us, didn’t
they?
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[139] Mark
Reckless: Huw and then Jenny. Sorry, Jenny, Huw had
indicated.
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[140] Huw
Irranca-Davies: Can I simply add to that that I think there was
a consensus at the time that the focus would be on climate change,
and this was a useful way of doing it—20/20 hindsight is
wonderful to have, but the evidence has changed as well
significantly, and as Simon picked up on, there is manipulation of
the data as well. But now knowing what we do know, if I flip the
Chair’s question round, isn’t this now a clarion call?
If transport—heavy transport, light transport, commuter
transport et cetera—is one of the main contributors, surely,
as part of the way forward, on local plans but also as a Wales-wide
strategy, we have to change radically our views on moving people
around the country. I’ve come in today by train and cycle:
two different modes there. I could’ve driven up and added to
all the—. Surely, that’s going to be some of the issues
around planning, development—some hard choices for saying to
people, like some institutions have done, ‘We’re not
building car parking spaces; you’re going to have to travel
in by rail’ or whatever.
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[141] Mr Oates:
Yes, I’d agree, and I think it’s for local authorities
and institutions to initially start looking at their own fleets and
their own procurement of diesel vehicles. When they’re
looking to change their fleets, then this should be a massive
consideration.
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[142] Jenny
Rathbone: So, what focus is there on changing our public
transport system, both trains and buses, to clean vehicles? Because
that, surely, is a major contributor to air pollution.
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[143] Mr Oates:
I don’t have any answer to that, sorry.
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[144]
Jenny Rathbone:
Has anybody got any good examples of
things that we might encourage others to follow? Certainly London
is saying they’re going to switch to green buses.
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[145]
Mr Willis: Yes. With the new plans to implement clean air zones,
then part of the implementation of a clean air zone would be the
requirement that any vehicles within that clean air zone have to
meet certain emissions standards, and there’s an
infrastructure for those clean air zones to be set up. Within the
new national plans, there will probably be more required clean air
zones in cities, including—the DEFRA lawyer mentioned south
Wales; it’s yet to be clear how that will be implemented. But
those clean air zones are one method of ensuring cleaner vehicles
in city centres.
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[146]
Mark Reckless: Simon.
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[147]
Simon Thomas: Yes, I just want to ask a specific question while
we’re on here. Obviously, we’ve had evidence as well,
and we’re aware that several cities have talked about banning
diesel completely. But I’ve also seen evidence that one of
the problems, apart from heavy goods vehicles, is idling diesel
vehicles, because they leave their engine running to keep the
various accoutrements that are needed for delivery vehicles these
days: your satnav has to run, your electronic devices, so everyone
leaves the engine running—taxis, delivery vehicles and so
forth. That can be dealt with within an urban environment. As it
happens, there’s a company in Wales that provides an electric
battery storage solution that allows diesel vehicles not to idle,
and that’s been sold now into London as part of their way of
dealing with clean air. So, are there intermediate technologies
that we should be moving to immediately in order to address this?
Because, clearly, we’re not going to clear away 50 per cent
of our vehicles overnight. We have to recognise our own problems
here. We’re speaking here at the National Assembly: we
don’t have an electric charging point here for the Assembly.
It’s very basic stuff that we should be doing ourselves. I
don’t suppose you would want to comment on that; I’m
saying that in order to incentivise ourselves to do better. But
around cities in particular—large towns—trying to
tackle this diesel problem in an intermediary way, are there
technologies we should be using today?
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[148]
Mark Reckless: Anyone want to answer that?
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[149]
Simon Thomas: I suppose that’s local, really.
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[150]
Mr Oates: We’re the same in Torfaen. We don’t have
an electric charging point, and I think it’s a shame. I think
that if we want to encourage uptake of greener technology, then the
infrastructure has to be provided to support that.
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[151]
Mark Reckless: It’s not a very complex technology. We’re
talking about ‘infrastructure’ as if an electric
charging point is some huge investment of complexity to put in.
They’re fairly simple things. I can’t really ask you
why we don’t have one at the Assembly, but I can ask you why
you don’t have one at Torfaen council.
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[152]
Mr Oates: I can’t answer that, sorry.
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[153]
Simon Thomas: We will have one soon at the Assembly, I should say,
because I’ve been working on it.
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[154]
Mark Reckless: Good. Can I refer to Jayne? We’ve trodden all
over the questions we had agreed you were going to ask, but I
wondered whether you might have any follow-up in this
area.
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[155]
Jayne Bryant: That’s fine. Thank you, Chair. On the back of
the question that Simon’s just asked, actually, because I
live in a city that has a motorway that runs right through it,
perhaps you can explain a little bit about the dangers of standing
traffic and the dangers around the air quality for people
who live quite close to a road that has, very often, on a daily
basis, standing traffic.
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10:30
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[156] Mr Oates:
Standing traffic and idling traffic are a big contributory factor
to air quality management areas in the areas that we’ve
discussed already, Hafodyrynys and Usk. Traffic congestion and the
idling of diesel vehicles is a big part of why those limits are
being breached.
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[157] Jayne
Bryant: Does somebody else have any comments on the health
impacts of idling traffic?
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[158] Mr
Willis: I can only agree with Peter. If major roads are passing
through an area where people are exposed because they’re
going about their day-to-day business then that’s a big
problem. I think that we’re all aware that that is the
case.
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[159] Mark
Reckless: Can I ask witnesses a final question? We’ve
spoken quite a lot about pollution and air quality and the impact
on human health. Are we giving enough consideration to the impacts
on nature, wildlife and biodiversity? We’ve got the SoNaRR
process. What should we be doing to integrate air quality issues
into that, or are they not the same degree of concern for wildlife
as for humans?
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[160] Ms
Whitfield: Well, as an adviser on nature conservation,
I’d say it’s extremely important that we protect our
biodiversity and our natural resources from air pollution, and
there are widespread impacts, as I said at the beginning. I think,
in terms of the solutions, it’s important to realise that the
same pollutants are causing problems, albeit the sources and
dispersion/exposure patterns are different. So, I’ve
mentioned ammonia a couple of times already—a key source of
secondary particles to PM2.5, but also a significant contributor to
nitrogen deposition. So, I think attention needs to be put on that
as well as, more obviously, nitrogen oxide, et cetera, including
nitrogen oxide in terms of it being the precursor gas to ozone as
well.
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[161] Obviously, I
come from the UK perspective, but my understanding of the Welsh
well-being goals, and thinking about those goals—. In terms
of the natural environment, it does have an impact on the
resilience of natural resources and the benefits that humans derive
from those, and I think it’s worth exploring that more, and
looking at those impacts and where there could be co-benefits for
human health and the wider environment.
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[162] Also, in terms
of ammonia and farming, emissions of ammonia from farming represent
a loss to farmers in respect of nutrients. If it’s contained
within the farming system it’s fertiliser for free, so any
losses of ammonia from the system are a cost to farmers, and
retaining it in the system is a benefit to farmers. So, it would be
interesting to look at how you can reconcile the desire for more
agricultural productivity with the risk from increasing ammonia,
but also to realise the win-wins you can have for the farm and the
natural environment.
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[163] Mark
Reckless: Isobel, this committee has been quite complimentary
about the SoNaRR initial
report that NRW put together on a tight timescale, but I wonder,
for future reports, is there scope for integrating air quality more
into your assessment of wildlife and biodiversity?
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[164] Ms Moore:
Certainly, those aspects are covered, and we’d look to
include them in the future and give them a focus. Some of the
things that were looked at were in relation to nitrogen deposition,
and also acidification from sulphur dioxide. The other thing that I
wanted to mention that we do as an organisation is that, when we do
permit our installations, our heavy industry installations, we
consider them with regard to the habitats directive, and also
ensure that they’re protective with regard to those
requirements. And, obviously, we’ve got things in place in
terms of looking at nitrogen deposition, and a programme under the
LIFE scheme in terms of looking at action plans for nitrogen
deposition for the future. So, certainly, we will make sure that
SoNaRR continues to cover
those elements.
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[165] The other thing
that I also wanted to mention is that some of the EU limit values
do have specific ones for vegetation on them. So, there is an
element of that being considered as part of those European
requirements.
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[166] Mark
Reckless: Thank you. I’m grateful to witnesses. We have a
second panel, including Huw Brunt, who will be joining us—if
I could thank you very much for your contribution today, and
declare a 10-minute break for Members before our next panel. Thank
you.
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Gohiriwyd y cyfarfod rhwng 10:35 a 10:48.
The meeting adjourned between 10:35 and 10:48.
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Ansawdd Aer yng Nghymru
Air Quality in
Wales
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[167] Mark
Reckless: Bore da. Thank you for joining us. I understand you
were able to catch some of the previous session from the gallery,
although not the beginning. I’m not sure, Huw, whether you
caught the reference, I think from Peter from Torfaen, who
upbraided the committee on why we didn’t have Huw Brunt on
the panel, so I’m pleased you’re now with us.
[Laughter.] Can I first—? Trying to understand the
health impacts of air quality, we had a discussion around the
smaller particulates and nitrogen dioxide. I wonder, from the
public health perspective—and then, specifically, I know the
lung and pulmonary impact is very important—can you clarify
to the committee what you now see as the major issues, and where we
should be focusing our efforts from a public regulatory standpoint,
given your assessment of the public health risks and impact.
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[168] Mr Brunt:
From a public health perspective, you’ve probably already
heard this morning about the impact, or the estimated impact, of
air pollution in Wales. The usual figure for the UK—the one
that’s quoted—is around 29,000 deaths equivalent that
are attributed to certainly those fine particulates. The figure in
Wales in obviously smaller, but still a preventable 1,600-ish
equivalent deaths for fine particulates, and just a smaller number
of 1,100-ish, from our calculations, for nitrogen dioxide. Those
two pollutants, from our perspective in a contemporary context of
local air quality management, are our primary concern, and,
actually, those two pollutants are the ones we can do something
about. There are other public health concerns associated with ozone
exposure, but they fall outside of the local air quality management
regime. I should say, as well, that Public Health Wales is actively
engaged with the Welsh Government, local authorities, Natural
Resources Wales and other key players to try to enhance that
statutory regime to try and tackle those issues at that local
level. I can explain a bit more about that in due course, perhaps,
but, from a public health point of view, we are concentrating our
efforts on those two pollutants.
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[169] Mark
Reckless: Mr Carter.
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[170] Mr
Carter: Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to come, and
it’s great to have the committee interested in this area. I
was particularly humbled, I suppose, actually, to have questions
about lung health asked in the last session, and the panel answered
them very well. From our point of view, I think it’s been a
challenge for a number of years to raise the profile of air
pollution as being a contributor to lung health issues outside of
London. I think there’s been a perception that it is very
much a London problem, so to actually have it on the agenda here in
this building today is very useful for us.
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[171] The key thing
we’re keen to get across is that it is a problem for people
with pre-existing lung conditions, certainly the 71,000 people with
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease across Wales and the 222,000
with asthma. It’s a huge problem for their ongoing lives and
well-being, leading to asthma attacks and COPD flare-ups. But, for
those people without a pre-existing lung condition, there is a
growing body of evidence to suggest a link between the nitrogen
dioxide and the particulate matter eventually contributing towards
those lung conditions. So, those are things we’re keen to
explore, and, crucially for us, it is preventable, and
there’s a range of things that are obviously outside the
scope and competence of this institution, and are an UK-wide ask,
or possibly and European ask for the time being. But there are
things that could be done by the Welsh Government, so we’re
really grateful for the opportunity to raise these issues today
and, hopefully, put this on the agenda.
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[172] Mark
Reckless: I was very struck by the recent, very large Ontario
study that linked air pollution, or at least living close to a
major road, to significantly greater levels of dementia. I just
wonder, on the health impact, as you’re the British Lung
Foundation, but that cause of dementia or link, is that presumed to
be because small particulates are coming into the bloodstream
through the lungs?
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[173] Mr
Carter: That is my understanding. Huw might want to comment on
that further, because dementia isn’t an area of my
speciality. But the key message is the same: that the challenge is
that particulate matters are of varying sizes and that,
particularly, the smaller they are the more easy it is to pass
through to the bloodstream, and I have seen that study. In our
case, obviously, our concern is the particulate matter building up
and damaging the lungs on an ongoing basis. We know it’s
particularly damaging for small children, keeping their lungs
smaller than they need to be, and we know there is a causal link
between smaller lungs and long-term lung conditions, but I
couldn’t comment on the dementia aspects. Huw might be able
to.
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[174] Mark
Reckless: I know we have some young people and children in the
gallery at the moment. You mentioned smaller lungs and the impact
of air pollution on children can be greater and more damaging. I
wonder, Huw, from the perspective, particularly, of schools, how
good your understanding is of the health impacts of schools being
sited close to heavily polluted roads and what, from a public
health perspective, you are able to do about that.
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[175] Mr Brunt:
There are a couple of points, really, to pick up on there. The
first one is around children and vulnerable receptors or vulnerable
population groups, and there’s no doubt that children, older
people and those with pre-existing conditions are in that
vulnerable category. The only other thing to add to that, before I
go on to the schools issue, is the link between air pollution and
multiple deprivation, which is coming through loud and clear now as
part of the work that we’ve done in Public Health Wales to
look at associations between that. There is this triple jeopardy,
if you like, where air pollution, multiple deprivation and impaired
health can exacerbate problems and create those inequalities.
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[176] If we think
about that in a community setting, obviously, that has an impact on
schools as well, and implications for schools. There’s no
doubt—there’s been lots of research and studies
undertaken in and around school environments, particularly those
schools that are located in busy, congested areas, so, for example, on roads with junctions near
them and also with cars and other vehicles, buses, idling outside
of schools. There is the potential for air quality, certainly at
different times of the day, at those peak times, to be of concern.
But, in terms of quantifying that, it’s quite difficult
because we don’t routinely have monitoring data to tell us
what the air quality is like exactly at that school location or in
the school yard.
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[177]
Mark Reckless: Shouldn’t you be doing that, and not just in
the school yard, but actually in classrooms, to see how much impact
there is?
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[178]
Mr Brunt: Public Health Wales doesn’t have a
responsibility to monitor. Local authorities routinely monitor the
air quality in their localities through the local air quality
management regime. We would very much like to see more monitoring,
because it informs the way that we work.
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[179]
Mark Reckless: Why can’t you facilitate that? I mean, I
understand it’s now not expensive, particularly, to have
monitoring equipment in schools, perhaps as part of a science
project. If a school were willing to have monitoring equipment, are
you not able to facilitate and co-ordinate just bringing those
measurements together and using that to inform your
work?
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[180]
Mr Brunt: Yes, we can, and we are starting to support that.
There’s a schools project at the moment, an educational
project, with resources and diffusion tubes to measure nitrogen
dioxide, which is being piloted at the moment in a couple of local
authority areas. The resources are being made available by Ricardo
Energy and Environment, and we are looking into how effective that
might be as a measure to not only raise awareness in schools, but
also to glean a bit more information about what the exposure might
be at those schools. So, we’re actively supporting that and
we’re engaged in discussion with local government and Welsh
Government on how we can roll that out if it’s
effective.
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[181]
Mark Reckless: Thank you. Can I bring Huw in, and then
Simon?
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[182]
Huw Irranca-Davies:
One of the roles Public Health Wales does
have, to my understanding, is the issue of raising awareness and,
by doing so, effecting behavioural change.
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[183]
Mr Brunt: Yes.
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[184]
Huw Irranca-Davies:
Not only in terms of schools, but I am
interested in the specifics of schools, and their proximity to
areas of high air pollution, but also the contributory effects of
the actual to and fro to that school contributing to it as well,
with parent drop-offs. And this is difficult—people have busy
lives, they are concerned about the safety of their children, and
they make decisions about how to get them there. What do you see as
your role, as Public Health Wales, in articulating the messages
behind exactly what you were saying about social justice, about
areas of high deprivation suffering the worst, and so on? How do
you do that? What are you doing to get that message across, and
what would be your policy proposals for schools?
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[185]
Mr Brunt: To start with the general awareness raising, I was
just explaining prior to coming in here that I’m on a bit of
a crusade around this at the moment, to raise awareness internally
within Public Health Wales. We started having those discussions
with policy officials in Welsh Government because it is our
intention to provide formally a resource for others to use, whether
it’s through these newly emerging public service boards, to
communicate messages far and wide. We recognise that, through
behaviour change, and if we can achieve some of that and get people
more into active travel or sustainable transport, we are able to
not just push a message, but actually public health then becomes
part of the solution. It’s much more difficult, obviously, to
get through to some population groups in some communities, but we
had agreement yesterday from the Minister and the chief medical
officer to work with policy officials in Welsh Government to
develop that resource. So, that will happen over the next couple of
weeks, and we will agree a framework and push that out.
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[186]
That is happening, albeit in an ad hoc
way at the moment, through health boards and through local public
health teams. But what we want to do is make sure there is one
consistent message based on fact and effective evidence-based
interventions that we can then push out. That will need to factor
in schools as well, and there may be a certain need for something
more specific to tackle some of the issues in schools and what can
be done.
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[187]
Huw Irranca-Davies:
Well, just as a brief follow-up on that,
there’s one issue of the change of behaviour by gentle
signals, making things easier and so on, and then there’s the
other aspect of being quite hardline and saying certain behaviours
would not now be acceptable.
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[188] Mr
Brunt: Yes.
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[189]
Huw Irranca-Davies:
Does Public Health Wales believe that
because of exactly the factors you raise, not only around schools,
but knowing the areas of population that it hits, there are more
hard-nosed interventions that should take place?
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11:00
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[190] Mr Brunt:
I think there are, and the recent consultation by the National
Institute for Health and Care Excellence on outdoor air pollution
and what works is an excellent summary of the evidence in this
area, and I think that where we have the evidence base to say,
‘Well, this works, make it happen’, there’s a
role there for public health to advocate for that. How that
actually comes about is another thing. But there are some areas
where more work is needed and you may need to approach it in a
gentler way, perhaps. But, yes, there is a distinction to be made
between, ‘This is tried and tested. This works, do it’,
versus, ‘Let’s try this, let’s be innovative.
There are certain circumstances that may dictate how things go in
different areas. Let’s try it, evaluate it effectively and
then move on’.
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[191] Huw
Irranca-Davies: Interesting.
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[192] Mark
Reckless: Simon.
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[193]
Simon
Thomas: Diolch, Gadeirydd, ac fe wnaf i ofyn fy nghwestiynau yn
Gymraeg. Yn gyntaf oll, buaswn i jest yn hoffi deall ychydig yn fwy
o ran yr effaith ar iechyd, o’r ffigurau hyn. Roeddech chi,
Mr Brunt, wedi rhoi ffigurau sy’n cadarnhau beth oedd wedi
cael ei ddweud yn y sesiwn flaenorol, hefyd, ynglŷn â
marwolaethau cynnar o PMs, a nitrogen deuocsid yn ogystal. A
ydy’r ffigurau yna’n ffigurau Cymreig, wedi eu gweithio
mas o ran y sefyllfa yng Nghymru, neu a ydyn nhw’n
Barnettisation, os liciwch chi, o ffigurau Prydeinig?
Dyna’r cwestiwn cyntaf.
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Simon Thomas: Thank you, Chair.
I’ll ask my question in Welsh. You should be able to hear the
interpretation. So, first of all, I’d just like to understand
a little bit more about the health impact, in relation to the
figures that you mentioned. Mr Brunt, you mentioned a figure that
confirms what was given in the previous session, but also with
regard to the early deaths from PMs and nitrogen dioxide as well.
Are those figures Welsh figures, having been worked out in the
Welsh context, or are they Barnettised figures, as it were, of the
British figures? That’s the first question.
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[194] Yr ail gwestiwn, sydd yn fwy i Mr
Carter, efallai, yw: wrth ystyried effaith hwn ar yr ysgyfaint ac
ar iechyd yn gyffredinol yng Nghymru, a ydym ni’n wahanol i
weddill y Deyrnas Gyfunol yn lefel a chyfartaledd y clefyd ar yr
ysgyfaint sydd gennym ni—COPD, a hanes diwydiannol,
efallai—ac felly mae yna fwy o effaith o’r ffigurau yma
yng Nghymru oherwydd iechyd cyffredinol y boblogaeth?
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And the
second question, which is perhaps more for Mr Carter, is: with
regard to this impact on lung and general health in Wales, are we
different to the rest of the United Kingdom in terms of the level
and average of lung disease that we have in terms of COPD and the
industrial history in Wales, and so on, and therefore there’s
a greater impact in Wales because of the general health of the
population?
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[195] Mr Brunt:
I’m afraid I can’t answer in Welsh. To start with the
issue of the figures, these are figures that are quoted a little
bit carelessly, I think, in some respects. The 29,000 equivalent
deaths figure and years of life lost are not easy to understand.
They’re complex figures, and the way that they’re
calculated is based on modelled air pollution concentrations in a
locality. So, you have a 1km square grid, basically—the UK is
broken down into 1 km square grids—and then a correlation
co-efficient, which is basically a relative risk, so it’s
your risk based on a 10 microgram per metre cubed increase in that
pollutant. So, that’s all in a tried and tested calculation
that then provides you with a figure. And that estimate—and
it is an estimate, because the confidence in that is quite wide.
So, there’s a lot of uncertainty around some of these things,
because we often don’t know the exact concentration that
people are exposed to; we don’t know the exposure, and people
are affected in different ways, based on their make-up and so
on.
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[196] So, it is very
much an estimate, but it does help to try to quantify or to scope
the problem and raise the profile. There are other ways that are
emerging to do this, and there’s some work that’s
recently been undertaken in Delhi to express—rather than an
equivalent of 29,000 deaths, they’ve expressed it as the
equivalent of passively smoking x number of cigarettes per day,
which actually people can relate to. So, there are a number of
different ways of trying to communicate this in a meaningful way.
But it’s important to remember that the 29,000 deaths, or, in
the Welsh case—and they are Welsh figures that we’ve
calculated in Public Health Wales—
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[197]
Simon Thomas: Okay, so that’s square kilometres in
Wales.
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[198]
Mr Brunt: Yes. We’ve broken all of that down for Wales
and come up with our own estimates, so they’re not
extrapolated from the UK figure. It doesn’t refer to 29,000
people. So, that ‘equivalent of’ is the really
important part, because what it means is that air pollution is
affecting thousands more people than those 29,000, but actually,
cumulatively, it all adds up to around about 29,000 deaths that
could have been prevented in the entire population. So, it’s
a difficult thing to understand, certainly for members of the
public, and it goes back to communication and how you actually get
that across in a meaningful way. But I think this is the challenge,
and this is where public health can come in and help local
authorities and others to try to communicate that in the ways that
we know are effective and crystal clear.
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[199]
Simon Thomas: And from the point of view of—
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[200]
Mr Carter: Yes, certainly in terms of our view, I certainly
wouldn’t seek to apply Barnett consequentials to the numbers of people with
COPD across Wales. But no, we do have more people per head of
population with COPD and asthma than the UK average. It’s
about 2.2 per cent in terms of COPD, so 71,000 COPD and just over
200,000 for asthma. There is that challenge of the links between
the different figures. So, yes, there is a link between long-term
smoking rates—the rates of both COPD and asthma vary
dramatically for different parts of Wales, and you can correlate
those with the smoking rates, but you can also correlate those with
areas of old industry as well, so there are challenges
there.
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[201] I think
one of the reasons we have had a battle in some ways across the UK
with this issue is that the air pollution issues have been creeping
up on us. I think it’s easy to see the effects of smoking
around this, but not necessarily the effects of invisible diesel.
So, that is a challenge for us. Most of these issues are long-term
effects. So, whilst we know that the short-term consequences of
exposure affect far more people who actually have COPD or asthma, leading to exacerbations, flare-ups,
hospital admissions and, possibly, deaths, if it’s a
particularly bad exacerbation or attack—because it’s
easy to play down the seriousness of those things, but an asthma
attack or a COPD exacerbation can be fatal. Those are the
short-term consequences, but, of course, the long-term consequences
of year upon year upon year of being next to a busy road,
travelling to a school with a busy road next to it, are the
long-term effects of smaller lungs, and therefore you’re more
likely to have conditions down the road. And, indeed, a family
member with pre-existing asthma or COPD possibly walking that child
to school on a regular basis—again, it’ll be creeping
up on them and is linked to heart attacks as well.
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[202]
So, those are the challenges, but they do
vary. I know that, certainly looking back and focusing on historic
industries, there’ve been some interesting test cases in the
courts recently, trying to look at old coking plants and trying to
distinguish the effects of COPD on the workers there, and how much
that was caused by them smoking—and the vast majority were
because of the nature of the industry—versus those who
developed it because of working in a coking plant. Actually, there
have been some very successful cases on that. So, you can make
extrapolations. They are very complicated to do, but you can make
that differentiation.
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[203]
Clearly, looking at children’s
lungs, particularly in communities where perhaps their parents may
well have a history of smoking, and comparing their lungs,
particularly if they haven’t got anyone smoking in their
households, is a useful way of trying to indicate real-world
effects on those people.
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[204]
Simon Thomas: I was raised within a couple of miles of the
phurnacite plant in Abercwmboi and I remember a lot of these
problems.
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[205]
Ond os caf fi
droi yn ôl at fwy o gwestiynau, a diolch am hynny—roedd
yn gymorth mawr i ddeall sut y mae’r ffigurau hyn yn cael eu
gweithio mas. Yn nes ymlaen efallai, mae’n siŵr y bydd
Aelodau’n gofyn mwy am y llygredd sydd ar y stryd fel petai,
ond mae gen i ddiddordeb ar hyn o bryd hefyd mewn llygredd sydd yn
dod o sefydliadau sy’n cynhyrchu ynni mawr. Rydym ni wedi
cael tystiolaeth, er enghraifft, bod gorsaf pŵer Aberddawan
wedi torri rheolau ynglŷn â llygredd awyr sawl gwaith.
Roedd yna achos yn Llys Cyfiawnder Ewrop wrth gwrs, ond rwyf hefyd
wedi gweld ffigurau sy’n dangos fod yr orsaf bŵer ym
Mhenfro, yn fy rhanbarth i, hefyd wedi torri’r lefel sawl
gwaith. Felly, rwyf i jest eisiau gofyn a ydych chi, yn enwedig o
ran Iechyd Cyhoeddus Cymru, wedi gwneud asesiad o effaith y
gôr-lygredd yma o’r gorsafoedd pŵer mawr yng
Nghymru—y rhai, os liciwch chi, sy’n llosgi glo
traddodiadol yn benodol.
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But if I can turn to a few further questions, and
thank you for that response—it was a great help to understand
how these figures are worked out. I’m sure that later other
Members will ask more about the pollution on street level, as it
were, but I have an interest in pollution that comes from major
energy generation plants. We’ve had evidence that the power
station in Aberthaw has broken rules with regard to air pollution
many times. There was a case at the European Court of Justice of
course, but I’ve seen that the Pembrokeshire plant in my
region has also breached the level several times. So, I just wanted
to ask whether you, in terms of Public Health Wales in particular,
have made an assessment of the impact of this over-pollution from
major energy-generation plants in Wales—those that burn coal
and traditional fuels in particular.
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[206]
A ydych
chi’n cytuno hefyd â’r asesiad penodol a wnaed
gan Greenpeace a Chyfeillion y Ddaear a oedd yn priodoli—gan
ddefnyddio’r ffigurau rŷch chi newydd fod yn eu
defnyddio—67 o farwolaethau cynnar, os mai dyna’r
ffordd i’w ddweud ef, i’r ffaith fod gôr-lygredd
wedi digwydd yn Aberddawan? A ydy hwnnw’n gwneud synnwyr i
chi?
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Do you agree with the general assessment made by
Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, using the figures that you
have just given, that 67 early deaths, if that’s the way to
put it, were caused by the pollution in Aberthaw? Does that make
sense to you?
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[207]
Mr Brunt: I’ve read the report. We provided some comments
on it. I think it all comes back to this level of uncertainty. To a
certain extent, based on the uncertainty, you can manipulate the
data to some extent to bring out some associations that perhaps may
not actually be there. It’s very difficult to provide an
estimate of the impact of a particular point source on a population
and that’s what we’re talking about here—albeit
several point sources. We can have a lot more confidence in
some of the calculations and some of the estimates that look at
pollution in the round. So, what I would say is that there’s
a lot of uncertainty with that approach, and I can’t recall
exactly what we said in response to that report, but it was along
those lines.
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[208] Frequently, in
Public Health Wales, because I head up a team that deals with not
just air pollution, but air, land and water contamination as well
as emergency planning and the planning aspects of new developments,
we are asked questions not just about existing plants and existing
industrial processes, but about new developments as well.
Routinely, we undertake an assessment; it’s a public health
risk assessment that captures each of those different aspects. So,
typically, air quality will be captured as part of our risk
assessment, and we will comment on that. So, we can do it
retrospectively with a plant that already exists, but, as I say, it
does depend on having good air quality monitoring data there that
we can then compare with air quality objectives and put a public
health risk assessment that we have confidence in based on that.
For the new assessments that are being done as part of the new
developments, then we have a responsibility, as part of the
consultation process, to flag up any concerns that we might have
before that process is actually built, and we’ve recently
done that—
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[209] Simon
Thomas: Can I just ask you on that, then, to understand how you
can—? I understand the evidence you just said about you
can’t really say that this particular power plant is
responsible for x number of deaths, because it just doesn’t
work like that.
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[210] Mr Brunt:
No, it doesn’t.
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[211] Simon
Thomas: I understand what you’re saying there, but, by
the same token, how can you make an estimate of the public health
impact of a new development, because, to my mind, the data do not
allow you to do that either? If they do not allow you to do it
retrospectively, then how do they allow you to do it in that
forecasting way? So, aren’t we in the same position in that
we don’t really have a very good appreciation of the real
health impacts of some of these major industrial emissions?
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[212] Mr Brunt:
We don’t, and the vast majority of industrial processes
won’t have routine air quality monitoring next to them. So,
it’s very difficult for us to—unless there has been air
quality monitoring undertaken—do an accurate public health
risk assessment. A lot of the work is done on modelling, and the 1
sq km grids, as I mentioned previously, are one form of modelling.
There will be other modelling that is used to forecast or predict
emissions from a point source in new developments. So, to a certain
extent, we can look at those and then make comparisons with the air
quality objectives. That’s what the local authorities will do
as part of the local air quality management regime.
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[213] The problem with
the air quality objectives that we have in statute is that, as the
evidence has emerged, we have learned more and more about these
pollutants, particularly fine particulates, and there is no safe
level. There is no threshold. So, we’ve got these artificial
air quality objectives that may not necessarily be protective of
health. But I take your point that it’s very difficult to do
and there’s a lot of uncertainty around a lot of this work,
because we don’t have that physical measuring station next to
where we would like to assess that exposure. It goes back to the
point earlier that we would very much like more monitoring to
inform those sorts of decisions.
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[214] Simon
Thomas: Isn’t it part of the problem, as well, as is
emerging very quickly within the evidence that we’ve received
so far, I think, that you’ve got Natural Resources Wales
looking at the large plants, you’ve got local air quality
monitoring, you’ve got an organisation like yourself taking
an overall view, and you’ve got the Welsh Government
responsible for Natural Resources Wales and permitting, but the UK
Government is the state that’s responsible for the EU
directives? There are a lot of holes for these particulates to get
through, aren’t there? There are a lot of gaps in the
system.
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[215] Mr Brunt:
There are a lot of holes. Actually, the local air quality
management regime, which is the research that I’m currently
doing, is focused on how we enhance that, but that is, if you like,
a delegated responsibility for local authorities. And that’s
very complicated in itself, but none of that actually features in
the Welsh Government’s and UK Government’s response as
compliance with EU legislation. So, there’s a disconnect,
definitely.
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[216] Mark
Reckless: Can I bring in Jenny Rathbone?
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[217] Jenny
Rathbone: Diolch. All very interesting. Just, first, for the
record, is it correct that a child travelling in a car to school is
more exposed to air pollution than a child walking to that same
school, or are you not able to say?
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11:15
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[218] Mr Brunt:
I wouldn’t be able to say with any confidence.
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[219] Jenny
Rathbone: Okay, but there’s always an assumption by the
public that taking your child to school in the car is actually
protecting them, when I’m not sure if that’s the
case.
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[220] Mr Brunt:
There is a study that has recently come out of King’s College
London and Imperial College London as well that looks at the
exposure potential for walking, cycling and car use. That
study—that study came out the tail end of last
year—suggested that exposure was highest in the car and
lowest whilst walking, but only for certain pollutants and I
don’t think that specifically looked at children.
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[221] Jenny
Rathbone: Okay, thank you for that. That’s obviously an
area we might want to look into. Just looking forward, now that
we’ve got the future generations Act, in both your
experiences, to what extent are policies now being integrated
between local authority departments, public services boards and
other organisations with expertise to ensure that we are driving
down air pollution?
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[222] Mr
Carter: Certainly from our experience, we haven’t seen it
yet. It’s certainly the hope and I think it’s a good
opportunity to do it. We’ve attempted to have meetings with
the commissioner and her staff, and dates have been promised but
then haven’t yet materialised. So, from what we have seen,
pollution does not seem to be a priority for the office at the
moment. I hope that inquiries like this and the attention being
brought by Welsh Government might change that. Clearly, again, I
think there’s a perception issue, as we discussed, about air
pollution being a London issue rather than an issue that affects
Wales. So, I hope that changes but, at this moment in time, we
haven’t seen much movement on that, but I hope that changes.
I’m not sure if Huw has a different experience.
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[223] Mr Brunt:
I do have a different experience. Because some of my work overlaps
with the policy directorate within Public Health Wales, we’ve
got quite good links with the commissioner’s office and
they’ve asked to meet to discuss air quality as part of the
climate change bigger picture, which is all very encouraging. I
think there is an interest in air quality and air pollution because
it’s specifically mentioned in a few pieces of correspondence
that have come out of that office. So, our experience is slightly
different.
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[224] I think
it’s a massive opportunity and, from our perspective, again,
we are very keen to influence that. If we can do everything we can,
as I say, about the go-ahead from the chief medical officer and the
Minister yesterday, to support Welsh Government policy officials to
develop an information resource that goes through to public
services boards to at least get that on their agenda—. I know
there are other competing interests but, as we will explain in some
of the material, air pollution is very much linked to a whole host
of other issues. So, you can’t really disentangle it from
planning, from transport, from some of these other huge issues that
we face, like climate change. It’s all wrapped up and part of
that one massive parcel, but we do need to break it down somewhat
and explain to each public services board exactly what it means for
them and what they can do.
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[225] Jenny
Rathbone: So, taking the example of the new Cwmbran hospital,
how are we going to ensure that a major project like that,
obviously involving many millions of pounds, is going to deliver
improved air quality rather than worsening the situation, in terms
of ensuring that people can get there by public
transport—clean public transport?
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[226] Mr Brunt:
Yes, sustainable transport is an important one. There are links
with transport and there are links with planning. I think that
certainly health boards and other public bodies all have corporate
responsibilities as well. So, whenever these new developments come
into fruition, upstream, there should have been advance thinking
about carbon footprint, carbon emissions and really doing their bit
to make sure that the impact on the environment, in the main, is
much lower than perhaps it might have been without thinking about
it. All of that will be part of the discussion and the public
health risk assessments.
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[227]
There’s a role here for health impact assessments as well, to
try and consider these issues way upstream so that they can be
mitigated against and action taken to prevent them actually
becoming problems in the first place. Some of the problems that
we’re facing now is that health impact assessments and
considering air pollution in the broader context were not done 20,
30, 40 years ago, which is why some of the issues that we face
today around congested streets and poorly planned
communities—poorly designed communities—perhaps could
have been prevented. So, we are very keen, from a current and
future generations context, to make sure that we are starting to
correct those problems.
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[228]
Jenny Rathbone:
So, do you think we have sufficient
regulatory powers at the moment to ensure that we are developing
healthy communities, so we are not siting major new housing
developments without proper transport links, and so that we are
designing cities and communities that are healthy?
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[229]
Mr Brunt: I wouldn’t profess to have the expertise on the
regulatory side of things. Certainly, on planning, we have worked
with Welsh Government and local authority planners to try to
influence their policies and will continue to do so. I think a lot
of this is to get air pollution, and the broader context of air
pollution, on their agenda, and not overlooked. If we can do that,
using mechanisms like public service boards to bring people
together to look at a problem in the round rather than as just
isolated problems further down the line, I think that’s half
the battle, but I couldn’t say about the regulatory
aspect.
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[230]
Jenny Rathbone:
Okay. Clearly, transport is the big
elephant in the room really, isn’t it?
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[231]
Mr Carter: It is, and there’s a slight paradox or
contradiction, I suppose. If someone has a lung condition, they are
more likely to need a private vehicle to get to that hospital in
that location. They are not necessarily going to be able to walk
because of the damage already done to their lungs. We are mindful
of that, but clearly, there are lots of crossovers here, in that
the more people who are able to get to that hospital by public
transport the better. But I also think that there is a link between
existing Government policy around trying to develop more health
hubs and trying to encourage more things in the community.
Obviously, the closer health is to local communities, be it in
practices or smaller hospitals, the greater the chance that someone
could walk there. That is obviously better for themselves, being
active, and for their own lung health, but also better for the
whole population by not driving as well. So, that is a
challenge.
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[232]
Just to come back quickly on what Huw
said about the regulations, in terms of the extent of what the
Welsh Government could or could not do, unfortunately, we are not
lawyers in this regard, but certainly, I think we have been
frustrated by some of the confusion about what is a Welsh
Government responsibility versus what is a UK Government
responsibility, and some of those lines being slightly blurred. We
are particularly frustrated, I think, by the use of DEFRA guidance
for things that actually we could have Welsh guidance for if there
was a willingness to do so. The current sense seems to be to not
only duplicate, as in word for word, but to literally use the DEFRA
guidance and send local authorities and organisations back to that
and incorporate it into Welsh laws, as opposed to consulting on
Wales-specific regulations. Scotland, obviously, has a slightly
different power setup, but Scotland has been pressing ahead with
its own, far more ambitious, guidelines. So, we think that there is
more that could be done, but how far that can be pushed within the
current legal envelope is something we would need further advice
on.
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[233]
Mark Reckless: On this area, can I just ask you, Huw—? There
was some criticism in the English context of public health
functions being devolved to local authorities and whether they were
happening to the same degree that they previously had. Are you
comfortable with the division of powers in Wales between your
function and that of local authorities, and is that working
sufficiently well as a partnership for the areas that we have been
discussing?
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[234]
Mr Brunt: Yes, it is working well, but there are improvements
that could be made, no doubt. Each local authority area, from
Public Health Wales, has a local public health team. So, while
it’s not physically embedded within the local authority
setup, they do work very closely together.
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[235]
Mark Reckless: But they report in to you in a way that their
equivalents wouldn’t in England.
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[236] Mr Brunt: No,
that’s right. So, we as a central team are able to have that
all-Wales overview, but then we get pulled in to support those
local issues. I’m currently working with colleagues in
Caerleon, for example, and involving the local public health team
in working through action plans on how we can improve active travel
and make public health part of that. Historically, we have fallen
outside of that. Even though public health specialists aren’t
embedded within a local authority structure, I don’t think
that hinders progress that could be made here. If anything, through
the well-being of future generations Act, we’ve got an
opportunity now to really pull more people into that and make sense
of it. So, I don’t think that we’ve got the sort
of problems that have been reported to be the case in England, and
I certainly think the opportunities are there. We just need to
seize them, and once we’ve demonstrated in some areas that,
actually, there is almost a proof of concept that this works, based
on effective evaluations and policies that have been implemented,
then I think that we’ve got something good to roll out.
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[237] Mark
Reckless: I was just going ask, Jayne, whether you wanted to
discuss the future generations Act, but also a hospital that I know
has big potential for Newport.
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[238] Jayne
Bryant: Thank you, Chair. First of all, I’d like to
thank the British Lung Foundation who, last year, made me cycle
while breathing through a straw, to get an idea of what having COPD
is like. I very much have sympathy with people who have that
disease. Just going back to the hospital point, perhaps, which
Jenny raised, I’m just wondering about the health impacts
assessments and how they’re done for communities such as
Newport with the Royal Gwent Hospital when traffic will be moved
from that area, so less people will be going to it, and how that
will affect that community. Do you have any comments about
that?
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[239] Mr
Carter: In terms of the practicalities of how that will
work?
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[240] Jayne
Bryant: Yes.
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[241] Mr
Carter: We haven’t been consulted formally, nor do we, I
suppose, have the capacity to reply to every local consultation
when it comes to that sort of thing. But, certainly, we would
expect there be a health benefit of moving that traffic away. But,
obviously, we have to be mindful of the effects of where that
traffic will go, and there’s a similar dilemma, obviously,
with the M4 relief road in that regard. Whilst, clearly, we would
welcome any policies that move lots of diesel and
particulate-matter-emitting vehicles out of residential
areas—and I think that applies for major buildings as
well—we have to be mindful of where they might be moved to at
the same time. So, I can’t comment on the Gwent specifically,
I’m afraid.
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[242] Jayne
Bryant: I was also interested in Huw’s point on Caerleon,
which is a village in my constituency. Whilst I do have the M4 that
runs through the city that I live in, there are different problems
about air pollution in, say, Caerleon and the M4. Can you comment a
little bit more about the work that you’ve been doing in
Caerleon?
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[243] Mr Brunt:
We get asked to support local authorities and other public bodies,
and the communities who have these sorts of concerns. Caerleon is a
tricky one because it’s a declared air quality management
area under the regime. The problem that we have there is, because
it’s a local air quality management area and we have,
fortunately, in that instance, measured data, we are able to
inform, or to make informed decisions, about how that work
progresses. So, there is a proposal within the local authority to
extend that air quality management area. Now that, in one sense, is
okay and that actually should be done, because every effort should
be made to protect the people who live it that area. My
issue—and I’ve had these discussions with the local
authority—is that the proposal just to extend that air
quality management area doesn’t go far enough. If
you’re going to tackle a local air quality problem, then you
need to look at not just the air quality in those two streets, or
affecting those eight houses, you need to look at the village or
the town and you need to push those interventions that are known to
work—that are known to deliver those population-level
results. These are the conversations that I’m having with the
local authority to try to get, I suppose, an appreciation of the
bigger picture, which is where I’m coming from, rather than
just dealing with the problem in isolation—to look a bit
broader. Because if you look broader, there are more opportunities
to increase and maximise the impact that you can have.
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[244] Jayne
Bryant: They’re both interesting points, because in
Caerleon there’s one road in and out, and people live very
close to that road. So, again, there’s a lot of standing
traffic, as there is on parts of the M4. Perhaps you could say a
little bit more about the health impacts of standing traffic and
the dangers of that.
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[245] Mr Brunt:
The problems that I’ve heard about are the idling vehicles,
and a lot of the information that I’ve read has been related
to buses and parents dropping kids off outside of school.
I’ve not seen anything that actually quantifies what that
increased impact looks like, but I suppose it’s logical, or
plausible, that if you are exposed to a higher concentration of air
pollution, then obviously you’re at increased risk. If
you’re a vulnerable individual, then it’s highly likely
that that increased risk is likely to be higher than it would be in
the general population. So, I haven’t seen anything that
actually quantifies that, but it’s plausible.
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11:30
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[246] Jayne
Bryant: Brilliant. Thank you. So, to go back to the future
generations Act as well, you mentioned in some of your answers to
Jenny about working with local authorities, and you’ve
mentioned Newport. Are there any local authorities within Wales
that you would see as a shining example of tackling air
pollution?
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[247] Mr Brunt:
There have been quite a few local authorities that have tried
innovative approaches to tackling air pollution—whether
it’s tackling air pollution or raising awareness of air
pollution. Swansea springs to mind. We’ve got very strong
links with all local authorities, but particularly Swansea.
They’ve introduced a system that warns people coming into
Swansea that air pollution has exceeded a certain level on some
main arteries into the city, and then diverted traffic. It’s
proactive and it’s innovative, but as we say, it may actually
move the problem elsewhere. But it is a short-term fix. Long term,
we obviously need to be cutting the numbers of vehicles anyway.
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[248] The other
example, which we did evaluate—and we, as Public Health
Wales, actually paid for measuring air pollution—was the
recent Cardiff car-free day. Cardiff local authority did just one
day, where it shut off a major road in Cardiff. Admittedly, it was
one road; so there’s always scope for improvement. But we did
evaluate that. The levels of nitrogen dioxide decreased
substantially on that day. So, it just goes to show what could be
achieved if we have a broader approach to these and much more of a
commitment to make this part of the norm, rather than the
exception.
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[249] Mark
Reckless: Can I bring in Simon, and then Huw?
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[250] Simon
Thomas: I just wanted to ask a specific question about one
potential good practice example, which is the use of trees in the
urban environment. We’ve had evidence, as a committee, that
trees can capture more than 50 per cent of particulate matter, and
evidence saying that, in Swansea and the Tawe valley, trees remove
136 tonnes of air pollution per year, saving the national health
service £715,000 by reducing asthma and heart disease. Now, I
don’t know where those figures come from. They come from the
Wildlife Trusts, but I don’t know where the origin is. But
that looks quite attractive. Obviously, trees in the urban
environment have wider well-being and climate change—flood
prevention and so forth—possibilities. But I’ve also
seen other studies that say that trees can act as a dam and hold in
air pollution in the urban environment; so, there’s a canopy
kind of effect. So, from the public health point of view,
what’s your recommendation to the use of trees in the urban
environment in tackling air pollution?
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[251] Mr Brunt:
The evidence is summarised quite nicely in that NICE guidance that
I referred to earlier. Both sides of the coin come into play here.
If you locate or plant trees too closely together in the urban
environment, then it prevents dispersion of pollutants.
That’s easy to comprehend. But planting the right
trees—and there are several studies to say what the right
species of tree are—in areas that are polluted—and I
know that there was a project in Port Talbot, like the one you
mentioned, that did this—can be extremely successful. The
main thing is to understand the different species of trees and what
they do, and to work with local authorities and others and NRW to
understand how they should be planted. But, yes, both bits of
evidence that you present there are good—
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[252] Simon
Thomas: But from the point of view of understanding, we do
understand it; therefore there should be enough information for
people to, basically, plant trees.
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[253] Mr Brunt:
Yes. There’s certainly that information to make it a viable
intervention. Definitely, yes.
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[254] Mark
Reckless: Could I bring in Huw on the UK air quality
strategy?
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[255] Huw
Irranca-Davies: You’ve given us a very good idea that, in
your view, there’s a lack of synchronicity between a lot of
the parts and the good work that is going on—the good plans,
the good strategies and so on. Can I just look at the top level?
The UK air quality strategy has been in place for a long, long
time. Is it fit for purpose?
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[256] Mr Brunt:
No. The last iteration of the air quality strategy for England,
Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales was in 2007. We’ve been
advocating, for quite some time, that we need to revisit
that—to review and to revise. A lot has changed in that time.
The air quality objectives haven’t changed, but, actually, we
do know a lot more about the health impacts associated with some of
these pollutants. So, what is desperately needed is a push to not
see those objectives as a ceiling that you can pollute to. We need
to push the whole lot down and have a much more stringent approach,
in my view.
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[257] The main thrust
of that strategy—pushing the local problems to local
authorities—is another problem, because that then focuses the
action only in those areas that fail those air quality objectives.
What we need is a two-pronged approach: one that reduces risks for
all, so it takes interventions and opportunities to reduce the
risks for the whole population, but also, based on the information
and an understanding of air pollution at that local level, to
target interventions to reduce the inequalities that we know exist.
So, in my view, it’s not currently fit for purpose, but I
think the recent consultation from Welsh Government will inform how
we address some of those gaps. But, yes, a new strategy for Wales,
giving the recognition that we should to the well-being of future
generations Act, and the opportunities that exist I think would be
appropriate.
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[258] Mr
Carter: Just to come back on the UK-wide context, I think Huw
was far more subtle than I was going to be, so I welcome his
frankness there, and it’s good to have that brute honesty.
There are a few things going on, a few issues at play, I suppose,
in terms of the UK-wide perspective. We are very passionate and
committed, and working with other organisations, demanding a new
cleaner air Act from the UK, because we are conscious of what might
happen to all of us from air pollution if and when we leave the
European Union.
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[259] But I think we
also must not lose sight of the fact that although we focus on the
current European targets, and when various parts of the UK break
those targets, actually, particularly on particulate matter, the
European targets are quite generous, and actually are twice as
generous as the WHO targets. Although we talk about no level of
particulate matter being safe, the WHO does give guidance, and the
European guidance is twice the limit of the WHO’s. So,
actually, there are opportunities for us to be more bold as a
country, but the reality is, at the moment, we are, certainly from
a Welsh context, in Cardiff, Swansea and Port Talbot, breaking the
WHO guidance on particulate matter. If we could be more ambitious
at a UK-wide level, in terms of a new clean air Act, being
ambitious regarding vehicle engines and looking again at the tax
arrangements for those vehicles—again, perhaps out of our
competence here, but things for the UK-wide perspective—we
could make some progress.
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[260] Huw
Irranca-Davies: It’s fascinating that you say we should
go further than those EU regulations have gone—music to your
ears, Chairman, I think, this idea that we could be even bolder.
But can I just pick up on—. Do you agree that there is
actually a need, from a Public Health Wales perspective, for
legislation underpinning this as well now—new legislation on
clean air?
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[261] Mr Brunt:
I’m not sure whether there is a need for new legislation,
because I think what we have is good and is good enough to really
tackle the problem, but I think that some of the newer legislation,
like the well-being of future generations Act, the active travel
Act, the planning and the environment Acts really enhance that
original legislation. And certainly from a local perspective, I
think that that will pull a lot of this together. That will solve a
lot of the problem, but the need for new legislation, I’m
not—well, we’d have to assess that a little bit more, I
think.
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[262] Huw
Irranca-Davies: Just a couple of other questions—one is
to do with the focus that we have, or that we have had
traditionally on nitrous oxide and nitrogen oxides. Does anything
need to change so that we have a broader focus on the wide range of
pollutants, including particulates and others? Or, again, is your
assessment that we have the tools in place, we just need to get on
with doing it?
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[263] Mr
Carter: I think we have the tools in place, but I think there
is an issue of public perception, and, actually, I would slightly
disagree with your first comment, because I think, actually, the
public perception, you know, is still that the key problem is
carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, rather than nitrogen dioxide. I
think that people—although there’s a growing body of
information in the public domain, I think, still, you know, people
are going to forecourts and buying more and more diesel cars,
despite the evidence from different car companies that some of the
testing for may well have been, well, interesting—how they
did it.
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[264] Mark
Reckless: You can go further than that, can’t you?
[Laughter.]
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[265] Mr
Carter: Thank you. I’m being careful there, Chairman.
So—
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[266] Mark
Reckless: You are protected from the laws of libel in this
committee. [Laughter.]
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[267] Mr Carter:
Well, I thought they only covered yourselves and not the witnesses.
[Laughter.] So, I think there is still a challenge there in
the public perception. I think people don’t understand it,
and don’t understand that we’ve had decades of people
being told about the risks of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide,
in terms of their boilers, and, actually, it’s still, I would
argue, a relatively new threat for people to perceive, even if we
as people working in that field understand it far more. But Huw may
have a different view.
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[268] Mr Brunt:
No, I completely agree. I think there is that public perception
that it’s very much a London problem and there’s
nothing that needs to be done, or can be done, in certain parts of
Wales—that’s not the case. I think that the challenge
is for us all to work together to communicate those messages. And
it goes back to the conversation that we had just now about trying
to communicate the equivalent of 29,000 deaths, or whatever it
might be—it doesn’t mean a great deal to Mr Jones at
No. 11. What we need is a very clear, simple message where people
can understand the problem, and be part of the solution, so that
there is something that they can do, individually, as families, as
communities, and we as public bodies can do to try and bring about
that change—those little steps that everybody take can then
add up to a much bigger difference.
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[269] Huw
Irranca-Davies: And my final question, on a very different
subject, and we haven’t focused on this a lot, but what is
your assessment of the importance of indoor air pollution, whether
it’s through ambient air pollution that is leaking into the
indoor environment, or those sources within the modern indoor
environment, or traditional problems such as mould and damp and so
on? What’s you assessment of that? Do you think it features
heavily enough in our strategies and plans for dealing with
this?
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[270] Mr Brunt:
From my perspective, it’s a very important area. It’s
one that’s not very well understood, and it actually featured
quite nicely in the recent Royal College of Physicians and Royal
College of Paediatrics and Child Health report. The problem with
indoor air quality as opposed to outdoor air quality is that it
varies vastly between households, depending on activities, whether
you’ve got—you could include smoking in that as well,
and there’s a whole host of different chemicals and
pollutants that may arise from furnishings and cleaning products,
those sorts of things. So, it’s very difficult to estimate
what an individual’s or a family’s exposure is indoors.
The one area that we are particularly concerned about in Public
Health Wales is that of carbon monoxide. We’re doing
everything we can to raise awareness around that and make sure that
everybody in Wales has a carbon monoxide alarm as a back-up. But
outdoor air pollution influencing indoor air
pollution—there’s obviously something there, but we
don’t know and there’s very little in the literature to
tell us what, or how to quantify or scope that problem.
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[271] Mr
Carter: We’ve done some work around the issue of indoor
air pollution and whilst some of the—when the report came
out—figures are quite startling, if you take out the smoking
in the home, then, actually, the number of deaths was very, very
small. I think there is a challenge of different
people’s—. I mean, ventilation would clearly be a key
issue for all of us in terms of avoiding damp and, you know,
obviously, if you’ve got any sort of log burner or some sort
of stove, then, obviously, yes, you are going to have issues there.
We know there are ongoing challenges with the way people—.
How often do people who have a log burner, for example, clear their
flue, and that sort of thing, because those are all factors? So, I
think it’s very difficult to quantify, I would argue. But
certainly, I mean, whilst there are—. I was contacted
recently, actually, by someone in west Wales regarding the effects
of outdoor pollution with log burning, in terms of a power plant.
There’s actually a significant volume of evidence
particularly around that in the indoor setting and less so in
outdoor settings. But every context is so different because of the
nature of different homes.
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[272] Mark
Reckless: I’ll bring in Jenny.
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[273] Jenny
Rathbone: These carbon monoxide testing alarms are now
reasonably commonplace. How close are we to enabling concerned
individuals to have diffusion monitors in their homes or in their
schools? At the moment we have 40 air quality action zones across
Wales—several in my constituency—but if we want to home
in more on localised areas, does the technology now exist to enable
institutions or individuals to be able to monitor it?
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11:45
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[274] Mr Brunt:
Yes. In Wales, as you say, there are some recognised air quality
management areas, and there are continuous air quality monitors in
each of those localities, which gives you a reading of what the air
pollution is like every 15 minutes or so. On top of that, we have
hundreds—. I say ‘we’—local authorities
operate a network of hundreds of diffusion tubes, which are very
simple. They’re inexpensive and you’ve probably seen
them, the tubes attached to lamp posts. They don’t give you a
reading instantly; you have to send them to the lab and they tell
you what the monthly concentration is, but the technology has come
on quite a long way.
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[275] There are
several local authorities in Wales that are fitting these new
monitors that give you real-time air quality data, and which can be
easily attached to lamp posts. And actually, that’s the type
of monitor that we used in the Cardiff car-free day. Pembrokeshire
are using them in the school setting, and there’s another
couple of local authorities. I think Newport, actually, have
invested as well. So, it’s seen as a very cost-effective way
of getting information about exposure in a particular area, and if
we were serious about looking at schools and understanding exposure
in and around schools, then those sorts of monitors would be a very
cost-effective way of doing it. But obviously, once you find out
about a problem, it’s like the screening analogy—you
need to be able to do something about it. I think we’re at
that stage now where we know a little bit about the general
picture. If we know more about a specific problem, we know what we
can do and we can put the two together to make a difference to
tackle that problem. The technology has moved on quite a way.
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[276] Mark
Reckless: Can I bring in David Melding?
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[277] David
Melding: Thank you, Chair. I think we’ve covered all the
points on air quality management areas, and how they relate to the
wider picture, but I was very interested in what you said about
urban design and anticipating the likely impact of certain policy
changes. As we discussed earlier, the shift to diesel in private
vehicles has probably prevented many of the gains we would have
achieved otherwise in terms of air quality. I just wonder, has any
modelling been done that we’re about to have another shift
away from carbon fuel, at least directly used by motor vehicles?
You can talk about where that energy is generated originally, but
if more and more cars, and also public vehicles, are going to be
powered by electricity, presumably we’ll be set to make some
considerable gains in terms of the urban environment, essentially.
Has that been looked at?
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[278] It also strikes
me that the Government, the UK Government, will lose a tax base,
because, obviously, the main tax base for the use of vehicles comes
through fuel tax. That would be removed when we move to electricity
as the power. I suspect we will see the introduction of some form
of congestion charging and road pricing, simply to replace that tax
base. And that, actually in the urban environment, would mean that
roads cease to be a public good—and, you know, there are
justifications for public goods, obviously, but efficient use is
not one of them—but road pricing could transform behaviour,
couldn’t it, because people would make much more efficient
choices, or share transport, or reduce journeys? So, has any of
this been modelled?
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[279] Mr Brunt:
Yes. Again, returning to the NICE guidance recommendations that are
out for consultation, congestion charges, clear air zones and
low-emission zones are all part of that, and they are all deemed to
be effective interventions to reduce air pollution. The sustainable
transport methods issue is an interesting one, and if you can get
people out of diesel cars, or diesel vehicles, generally, and into
more efficient vehicles, then that is a step in the right
direction. But, obviously, we need to go much further, along the
lines of active travel, to try and get people to actually not use
cars, but they can cycle or walk to wherever they need to go
through networks of planned paths and routes. The other thing that
is of interest in the guidance and the evidence that is emerging is
the impacts, or the potential benefits, for companies, which
includes public bodies, because certainly local authorities and the
NHS and Natural Resources Wales and the like have huge fleets of
vehicles, and if we are able to get those much cleaner and much
more efficient then that, in itself, helps. I completely agree that
a lot of these problems can be addressed through those
interventions that you mentioned, but the planning and the urban
design and the community design needs to facilitate that. So, we
need cycle paths, we need walking paths, we need them connected,
and we need to provide car-charging points and those sorts of
things if we’re going to be serious about it.
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[280] David
Melding: And are you examining, or do you plan to examine, some
of the international best practice now? I notice Oslo is just going
to ban motor transport if air quality deteriorates to a certain
level, and see what that does to behaviour. I’m not
suggesting we follow suit, but it’s something we should
certainly be examining. The other thing—I mean, some cities
have been quite radical and have suddenly said things like,
‘Well, why are we torturing ourselves about a lack of cycle
and walking paths?’—you know, urban environments are
covered in routes and all you really need to do is re-designate
what you’ve got. And I think it would be useful to see some
studies of the results of that type of radical action as well.
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[281] Mr Brunt:
Yes, and I think this has got to be part of the work that now we
will get involved in and continue to stay involved in—that
broader outlook to what not just the rest of the UK is doing, but
what the rest of the world is doing. What can we learn? And how can
we then bring that back and apply it to Wales? So, from Public
Health Wales’s perspective, we have a duty—or a
responsibility, rather—to take that global view, and we would
be able to advise on the evidence that is coming through to tell us
what’s effective. So, we will continue to do that.
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[282] Mr
Carter: Certainly on that international setting, we have been
very interested by the work particularly in Berlin over the last
few years since they banned—. Since they introduced their own
clean air zone in 2008 they’ve a 50 per cent reduction of
particulate matter and 20 per cent of nitrogen dioxide, so it can
be done. As you said, looking at Madrid, Athens and Mexico City and
the very ambitious plans there to actually ban diesel vehicles is
very promising. I think on a domestic setting, looking at
the—. We often obviously look to London and what’s
being done there, but I think, in reality, whilst that has—of
course, it was targeted at congestion, rather than
pollution—bought in a revenue stream and reduced congestion
to an extent, it hasn’t had the transformational shift that
certainly some of these other experiments have done.
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[283] We know that
clean air zones aren’t—. They haven’t,
necessarily, got to be about charging. In fact, they appear to be
more effective on an international setting when they are just about
straightforward bans rather than being seen as a way of actually
bringing in revenue to a local area. So, we can be ambitious and,
of course, we all know what a car—. In terms of a dramatic
shift, we know what happens in this city alone whenever
there’s a match day. You can make a fundamental shift, you
can clear the roads; you can make that very different. So, things
can be done, we can be radical, but it does require initiative by
Government or local authorities.
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[284] David
Melding: That’s very helpful. My second question, then,
was more to Joe, I think, really. The Welsh Government’s
consulting on local air quality management and noise pollution as
well, and—you will know, but they’ve consulted on a
more streamlined system, changes to reporting, a new template,
cooperation in reporting between local authorities, and a shift of
emphasis that perhaps puts the wide perspective first and then
focuses on the high-risk areas. I just wonder what the British Lung
Foundation has said about that consultation, and you might know a
bit more about the wider civic sector’s response. It’d
be useful if you’ve got any information for us.
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[285] Mr
Carter: We haven’t seen the responses from other
organisations, actually. We did respond ourselves, and we were
broadly supportive of what’s in it. I think we were—.
But we were slightly concerned that—we felt that the
Government could have been tougher on local authorities if there
were a lack of compliance. I thought that some of the warnings and
letters were—. We were surprised there wasn’t more
radical action in there, so I suppose our greatest concern there
was it not being hugely ambitious. There’s nothing wrong with
it per se, and our responses were quite limited on that basis, but,
certainly, if we think about some of the more radical moves being
looked at—particularly in Scotland, thinking of a UK
setting—we think that a lot more could be done. I know that
one of the things that many of my colleagues are
doing—obviously they’ve been doing a lot of work with
London, but they’re looking towards these metro-mayor models
coming out soon and thinking about the opportunities there for
mayors to take ownership in greater Manchester of air pollution.
But we have levers in our hands here that we could be applying.
Welsh Government could be doing more on this area. It does take
political will, and clearly that’s not necessarily always
possible. But, certainly, even in our existing competence, let
alone, obviously, what was agreed yesterday through the legislative
consent motion, there are more things that we could be doing here,
and, by bringing public health together with others under the
future generations commissioner’s auspices, we have an
opportunity to do a lot more on it, and hopefully avert a public
health problem.
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[286] David
Melding: Thank you.
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[287] Mark
Reckless: Did any other Members have questions to ask our two
witnesses? Do we feel the future generations Act has been covered?
Do we want to tackle diesel cars or—?
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[288] Jayne
Bryant: I think we have—[Inaudible.]
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[289] Mark
Reckless: We had good coverage before, yes. You heard some of
what we had before, and I think, overall, with the contribution
from you two gentlemen and our earlier panel, we’ve got a
very, very solid spread of evidence from our session this morning.
So, if I can thank you very much for coming to join us.
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[290] Mr Brunt:
Thank you for the opportunity.
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[291] Mr
Carter: Thank you for having us.
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11:56
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Cynnig o dan
Reol Sefydlog 17.42 i Benderfynu Gwahardd y Cyhoedd o’r
Cyfarfod
Motion under Standing Order 17.42 to Resolve to Exclude the Public
from the Meeting
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Cynnig:
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Motion:
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bod y pwyllgor yn penderfynu gwahardd y cyhoedd o’r
cyfarfod yn unol â Rheol Sefydlog 17.42(vi).
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that the committee resolves
to exclude the public from the meeting in accordance with Standing
Order 17.42(vi).
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Cynigiwyd y cynnig.
Motion moved.
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[292] Mark
Reckless: And if I may briefly propose we go into a private
session under Standing Order 17.42.
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Derbyniwyd y cynnig.
Motion
agreed.
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Daeth rhan gyhoeddus y cyfarfod i ben am
11:57.
The public part of the meeting ended at
11:57.
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