The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-14433, in the name of Sarah Boyack, on air pollution in Scotland. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament notes with concern statistics published by Friends of the Earth Scotland that suggest that more than 3,500 people in Scotland die early because of exposure to toxic emissions and that highlight the cost of these emissions, their environmental justice impact and the fact that they are believed to cost up to £2 billion to Scotland’s economy; is further concerned at the admission by Volkswagen Automobile Group that its diesel vehicles were fitted with “defeat devices” to produce favourable emission test results; notes the view that the results of other manufacturers’ models might require investigation; understands that European air quality legal limits continue to be breached in Scotland and that 32 air-quality management areas declared by local authorities, including sites in Edinburgh, are in breach of regulatory standards; believes that the Supreme Court’s determination that new air-quality plans should be devised before the end of 2015 to ensure that Scotland can comply with EU law is significant; welcomes the Scottish Government’s commitment to achieving binding European air-quality legal limits by 2020 through the delivery of its low emission strategy, and notes the view that a new policy focus and funding will be required for the Scottish Government to achieve its stated ambition for the strategy and to deliver low emission zones where air-quality management areas are currently in place.
17:08
I thank my colleagues for signing my motion and enabling tonight’s debate. I also thank the organisations, such as Friends of the Earth Scotland, Sustrans, the British Heart Foundation and Transform Scotland, that joined forces to give us such an excellent briefing for tonight.
More than 2,000 people die early deaths every year in Scotland as a result of traffic-related air pollution. There is also an impact on people’s health, on children, on older people and on those who have chronic conditions. The cocktail of emissions can lead to cancer, increased risk of heart attacks, angina and impacts on respiratory health. We lose days at work and we cost our national health service more than £1 billion every year.
The reality is that we are missing the European Union ambient air quality directive targets, and we are failing to meet our own Scottish standards in 32 local air quality management areas. We need to act. We had failed to act by 2010, so we got an extension from the EU until 2015. We need urgent action and all of us across the chamber need to sign up to action. That action will bring big benefits: better public health, more attractive and safer streets and a reduction in climate emissions. That must be good for us.
The strategy “Cleaner Air for Scotland: The Road to a Healthier Future” has some good ideas in it but it is not sufficiently ambitious in its timescale, and that is where I will focus my remarks. It is great that we aspire to have the cleanest air in Europe, but we should deliver on that ambition faster. We need to urgently target the areas where we have failure and, crucially, where we are likely to have failure in the future.
That means that we need action by the Scottish Government, our local authorities and our regional transport partnerships. They must work together with the financial resource from the Scottish Government. There are also legislative issues that we could address. For example, if we put in place bus regulation, we would be able to limit emissions from vehicles—particularly those that travelled through low-emission zones. We need a joined-up approach.
Good work is taking place in cities and towns across Scotland, but I fervently believe that we must ramp up that action throughout the country. That must involve a modal shift in our travel, more walking and cycling and more attractive and better-quality public transport routes. That would give us a double health benefit. More walking and cycling would be good not just for air quality areas but for our health as well, through increased physical activity. That goes back to the need for cleaner and safer streets, a more attractive environment and better infrastructure.
I mentioned bus regulation. If we had low-emission zones and low-emission buses, that would begin to tackle areas with poor air quality. However, we must analyse the failures in all those air quality management areas to see what the short-term wins might be. We should not wait until 2018 before we have low-emission zones; we should look now for early wins.
We also need to start work on other issues, such as more adoption of electric vehicles and vehicles that are powered by alternative fuels such as hydrogen and liquid petroleum gas. We need to think about changing our cars, taxis, buses and delivery vehicles. I accept that that is a big challenge—I am sure that the transport minister will say that it will take time—but, if we put that ambition centre stage, we can get going on it.
My motion mentions the issue of Volkswagen, which was topical when I lodged the motion. We must ensure that the companies that produce such vehicles deliver what they say on the tin. Vehicles that companies and people buy should meet the low-emission standards that the manufacturers advertise.
We need not only action across the public sector but the engagement of the private sector. I would like to see planning now with the logistics industry, so that it has the confidence to invest in alternatives to diesel vehicles, and there are clear areas where we need different choices to be made now. I would particularly like the long-distance freight and haulage industries to come together with city businesses and the retail industry to consider how those changes might be planned for. The public sector must lead the way with low-emission zones, but there will also have to be a response from private sector interests, which need to come to the table now.
We need a more ambitious timetable for low-emission zones, and we must concentrate everybody’s minds. The minute that something is three years away, it is in the “tomorrow” box. This initiative needs to be in the “now” box and we must tie it to Scottish air quality regulations. If the whole of Dundee and Perth were in an air quality management area, that would really concentrate the mind. Edinburgh has five zones—we know where those areas are and we need to act.
Our big cities need support now to get the infrastructure in place and a faster timetable for action on funding and action on low-emission zones. We also need to know how compliance with the new standard for fine particles will be monitored and delivered. At the moment, across Scotland, there are only six stations for monitoring fine particles.
I would like to see more planning policy and guidance actioned now. That must be done within the year. We do not need more new developments making the situation worse; we have to start the change now. This is not a future problem; we need to plan in new walking, cycling and public transport networks, car clubs, electric charging infrastructure and all the new developments from day 1, not in the next five years.
We know what needs to be done and we must get on with it. We need the political will, across the chamber, to do that and we need leadership from the Scottish Government. People are dying needlessly, and—if nothing else—we owe it to them and their families to get on with that action and not leave this as a future challenge.
17:14
I thank Sarah Boyack for securing the debate. The west of Edinburgh has four main commuter routes into the city: Queensferry Road, St John’s Road, Calder Road and Lanark Road. Two of those arterial routes—the A70 and the A71—are in my constituency.
At the evening peak, between 4.30 and 6.30, Calder Road is the biggest car park in the west of the city. Communities along that route—from Stenhouse, past Saughton Mains, Parkhead, Broomhouse, Sighthill and the Calders—have mile after mile of traffic crawling along in second gear as commuters try to leave the city. The residents have to put up with the road noise and the difficulty of travelling the Calder Road to get to their homes. Furthermore, anyone who lives along that route has to contend with the exhaust fumes that are pumped out by thousands of cars over a relatively short period.
The situation will only get worse as more than 6,000 homes are to be built in the east of the West Lothian Council area at Calderwood, Broxburn and Winchburgh. Those areas are all easily commutable into Edinburgh by car along roads that are heavily congested.
The other route that is in my constituency—Lanark Road—has the communities of Juniper Green, Currie and Balerno along its route. At the morning peak, traffic queues back from the Gillespie crossroads through Juniper Green to the outskirts of Currie. Although they do not yet have the same level of congestion or air quality problems as the Calder Road area has, the communities there are under siege from developers.
Over the past few years, the communities have faced applications for house building at Ravelrig, Curriehill, Riccarton Mains, Curriemuirend park, Muir Wood, Harlaw Gait, Cockburn Crescent, Goodtrees farm and Glenbrook. More than 1,800 new homes have been proposed along a piece of road 4 miles long that handles queues of 1 mile in length every morning, with the potential of more and more car owners adding to long queues.
On top of that, there are two proposals in and around Heriot-Watt University that would maroon the university in a sea of homes and make future expansion virtually impossible for the institution. Edinburgh’s garden district is a new district housing plan for 3,500 homes to the east of the university, next to the bypass. Although the council rejected the plan, phase 1 could still be built in my colleague Colin Keir’s constituency of Edinburgh Western. Wallace Land proposes a 1,500-house development to the west of the university, north of Curriehill station.
If all the developments are given the go-ahead, a small area of mainly arable land will host nearly 8,000 homes on top of those that are being built in West Lothian. They will all be commutable into Edinburgh along the A70 and the A71 in my constituency.
The City of Edinburgh Council issued a revised air quality action plan in August that highlights trams, buses and electric vehicles as a solution. The problem is that the trams only skirt my constituency at Broomhouse, buses will not resolve the situation as Lanark Road has no room for a greenway to encourage bus use and electric vehicles are not yet affordable for many families.
The only way in which we can address poor air quality for communities in my area is to draw to a halt further development in the green belt, improve the railway line from Edinburgh to Glasgow via Shotts and encourage house building along that route, in addition to the new houses that are being built along the Borders railway. The alternative for communities in the west of Edinburgh is to face more traffic, which reduces the quality of life for my constituents. The city will then grind to a halt.
Linking planning policy to transport needs across the development plan areas is the only way in which we can alleviate poor air quality in our cities. We need to act now before the EU imposes fines for failure to deliver reductions in air pollution.
17:19
I thank my colleague Sarah Boyack for bringing this significant issue to the chamber and for her focused and comprehensive analysis.
Until a person sees an old banger lurching down the street, air quality is out of sight and out of mind, unless they happen to live under its pall. Sarah Boyack said that the issue is a moral and public health one. The Scottish Government cannot delay action or its work with other partners, because any delay means more people breathing harmful and sometimes carcinogenic air every day.
People might hope that living outside our big cities would relieve them from concern about air pollution, and in many cases congested urban areas do have the most dangerous air quality levels. As Sarah Boyack said, it is disturbing that entire cities exceed the Scottish standards for air pollution. However, the air quality management areas that local authorities are declaring are not exclusively in our big cities. Musselburgh’s High Street has excessive levels of nitrogen dioxide despite its distance from Edinburgh and its seaside location, and the residents of Lanark in my region have concerns about traffic pollution in the closes that are connected to the High Street. They are considering taking small actions such as introducing pollutant-eating plants, as research suggests that this natural resource can make a worthwhile contribution.
Increased active travel will make a significant contribution to making air cleaner for urban dwellers and road users, and the range of initiatives to improve safety such as the possibility of presumed liability, road user education and appropriate infrastructure are essential, as is the recent Community Links plus award, but the Scottish Government’s planning review must also address clean air. We are planning new communities across Scotland, so this cannot wait.
I welcome the strategy “Cleaner Air for Scotland: The Road to a Healthier Future” and the steps that it contains to enable us to stay within the European limits. The Parliament will be aware that our Scottish regulation sets stricter standards for coarse particles, but I am concerned to know whether the Scottish Government will meet those more ambitious targets and commit to meeting its regulatory standards. Furthermore, the strategy lacks any hint of the expected reduction in polluting components. If the Scottish Government strengthened the strategy by including estimates of each planned improvement to air quality, people in the most affected zones could put their faith in it. Not only are such predictions a legal requirement, their omission makes it difficult to monitor any progress.
I thank the various groups that contributed to the briefing for this important debate, including the British Heart Foundation Scotland; Sustrans, which provided information on active travel; and Friends of the Earth Scotland, which has made a big commitment to campaigning for better air quality in Scotland. The statistics that they have shared regarding the relationship between the air that we breathe and our health are bracing. As we have heard from other speakers, links have been made to cancer, coronary events and respiratory health problems, and some research has even made a link to restricted foetal growth. All those breathing issues are dangerous to children, with so much asthma in Scotland today, and also to the elderly and the sick.
It is estimated that, given the lost work days and the cost to the national health service, air pollution costs Scotland £1.1 billion a year.
By 2015, urban air pollution is set to overtake dirty water and lack of sanitation to become the top environmental cause of mortality worldwide.
Local authorities are tasked with the job of cleaning the air that we breathe, but I am concerned that there is no new commitment to funding, as I understand it. The task is not a simple one, so it is imperative that the Scottish Government fully supports our local authorities, particularly when it comes to the implementation of low-emission zones. Those should be prioritised and all levels of the state need to work together on them.
We all have a right to clean air. Poor air quality affects every one of us, but it hurts those who are already disadvantaged more. It is for that reason that Scottish Labour has expanded the concept of environment in our brief to environmental justice. We must all work together across the Parliament to ensure that enough action is taken.
17:23
I, too, congratulate Sarah Boyack on securing the debate. I recognise her long-standing interest in this subject. I thank those organisations that provided the briefing for the debate, including BHF Scotland and Friends of the Earth Scotland.
The Scottish Conservatives share the concerns about our air quality levels, which are too low and are in breach of European Union air quality limits in too many areas. As a sufferer from a respiratory condition called chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, I am very conscious of the impact that polluted air can have on people with breathing conditions. It can be terrifying.
The BHF briefing highlights the harm that air pollution causes to the many Scots who have cardiovascular disease, and the BHF is to be commended for investing, since 2010, £6.9 million in medical research to help us to better understand the link between air pollution and cardiovascular disease.
The majority of air quality management areas are in urban areas of the central belt, but I am aware of one in force in my region to deal with parts of Inverness city centre around Queensgate and Academy Street that are affected by excessively high nitrogen dioxide levels.
A shocking statistic that has already been mentioned is that more than 3,500 people in Scotland die prematurely each year because of air pollution and exposure to toxic emissions, and it is also estimated that air pollution in the United Kingdom reduces the life expectancy of every single person by an average of seven to eight months. We must all agree, then, that tackling this has to be a policy priority. In addition to the early deaths, our national health service faces significant extra costs as a result of air pollution exacerbating respiratory and other health conditions; indeed, a figure of around £2 billion per annum has been suggested.
It is clearly vital that we further promote user-friendly, reliable and affordable public transport options, as well as walking and cycling, as alternatives to private car use in urban areas, and we must also ensure that every effort is made to relieve road congestion to enable traffic to flow much more smoothly. After all, vehicles stuck in traffic jams contribute greatly to air pollution. The development of more modern, lower-emissions vehicles will therefore continue to be important. Earlier this year, I was pleased to welcome the introduction of a new electric bus on Orkney as a result of support from the Scottish green bus fund, a development that Orkney Islands Council said was a great demonstration of the council’s commitment to reducing the consumption of fossil fuels.
Planting more trees and shrubs in urban areas also has a role to play, as it reduces ground-level ozone. Indeed, that approach has been the subject of a recent interesting academic report from the United States of America entitled “Tree and forest effects on air quality and human health in the United States”.
Sarah Boyack’s motion rightly refers to the recent scandal arising from Volkswagen's admission of manipulated emissions test results. The UK Government is to be commended for moving swiftly to launch an investigation into the extent of the practice and for widening its probe to look at whether the illegal software used by VW is being used elsewhere. Indeed, the UK Government has for some time now been pressing for action at EU level to improve emissions tests, and it will continue to do so.
Today’s debate is welcome, and we look to ministers working closely with our local authorities and other organisations on implementing practical and effective new air quality plans, as required by the Supreme Court’s determination.
17:27
I thank Sarah Boyack for bringing this important debate to the chamber this evening. I, too, thank Friends of the Earth, Sustrans, Transform Scotland and the British Heart Foundation for their very useful briefing.
Sadly, our much-heralded Scottish fresh air is not always as fresh as we might think or wish—sometimes noticeably so, particularly in national air pollution hotspots such as St John’s Road and Queensferry Road in Edinburgh. However, even at levels below current Scottish pollution standards, our health is still being damaged. While we debate the shortage of general practitioners, the impact of bedblocking and the need for our local authorities to have sufficient funding to implement health and social care integration, we need to start looking at how decisions taken in other policy areas, such as planning and transport, are impacting on our health. As a result, I will focus in my speech on the impact of the Government’s transport policies on air pollution and where change is needed.
In 2014, Transform Scotland published “Warning Signs 2014: Is Scotland moving towards sustainable transport?”, which sets out just how is Scotland moving about. According to the report, 65 per cent of journeys are made in cars, most of which have one passenger; 23 per cent by walking; 9 per cent by bus; 2 per cent by rail; and 1 per cent by bike. However, it was not always like that. In 1985, more trips were completed on foot than by car—the figures were 43 per cent and 39 per cent—and it was only in the late 1980s and early 1990s that things began to change and we had the situation that has remained in place ever since.
While our climate change emissions have declined by 34 per cent in recent years, our transport emissions have declined by 1 or 2 per cent, and they make up 25 per cent of all climate change emissions. Transport emissions contribute to climate change and also pollute our air and damage our health.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer has announced that air pollution and, in particular, particulate matter are carcinogenic—or cancer causing—to humans. Professor David Newby of the British Heart Foundation centre of research excellence in the city of Edinburgh has said:
“In the 1950s, when there was a lot of smog, the problem used to be that particles were big and they stuck in the upper airways. Now these nanoparticles go straight past, deep into the lungs, even into the bloodstream. We have a clear link between air pollution levels and heart attacks, and we believe the particles in the air are the cause of this.”
When I visited the centre recently with MP colleagues from Labour and the Scottish National Party, Professor Newby told us of the links between air pollution and heart attacks and the high likelihood that those who have suffered such attacks will have sat in heavy traffic in the hours that led up to that episode.
The European Environment Agency showed in its report on air quality in Europe that more than 90 per cent of people in European cities breathe air that is dangerous to their health. We know that children, the elderly and the sick are disproportionately affected by air pollution. That is not being addressed by the Government’s transport policies in Scotland or by our local authorities. If it were being addressed, we would not have 32 local air quality management areas in which air pollution levels are dangerously high. I welcome the fact that we have a cleaner air for Scotland strategy, but does it have the teeth to make a difference?
The Government claims that it will promote a modal shift away from cars through walking and cycling among other policies, but more has been spent on trunk roads and motorways and less has been spent on maintenance than ever before. If the minister wants to boost the local economy and prevent damage to cars and cyclists, shovel-ready potholes can be found across Lothian and across the country. Transform Scotland is right in calling on local and national Government to focus on a fix-it-first policy.
I would like the Government to invest in affordable bus and rail services, low-emission zones, and greener buses and taxis; to incentivise shared car use; to get freight off our roads where possible; to increase workplace parking levies; to protect and enhance our green spaces; to introduce presumed liability; and to invest more than 2 per cent of the £2 billion transport budget in walking and cycling. Green Party policy, in line with the views of the Association of Directors of Public Health, the Institute of Highway Engineers and the British Heart Foundation, is that 10 per cent of the budget is required to deliver the shift that we need to see for clean air for all.
The Government has five years to deliver its vision of 10 per cent of all journeys by bike. If the minister is serious about that, he will need to start pedalling a lot faster.
Doubtless we will hear about that.
17:32
I am grateful to Sarah Boyack for bringing the important issue of air pollution in Scotland to the chamber for debate.
Air pollution and the improvement of air quality should undoubtedly be of the utmost importance and concern to both the Parliament and the Scottish Government. The detrimental effects of poor air quality are well documented and have been described by the British Medical Association as
“a major challenge to human health.”
In the light of that challenge, I very much welcome the Scottish Government’s cleaner air for Scotland initiative as an appropriate step towards achieving its stated goals of reducing air pollution and improving human health.
As we know, Scotland’s on-going efforts to curb air pollution are represented in its 32 air quality management areas, which seek to lower emissions in areas that exceed regulatory standards. One such AQMA is located in my constituency, where emissions of sulphur dioxide from the Grangemouth petrochemical plant have resulted in an AQMA that is set to reach a decade old this month. I have previously expressed my frustration with the pollution surrounding that site but, thankfully, due to the co-operation of the Petroineos Manufacturing Scotland Ltd refinery, sulphur emissions have declined, and there have been no breaches of the AQMA objectives since a tail-gas unit that was designed to increase sulphur recovery was installed at the refinery in 2013 at a cost of approximately £70 million. Therefore, breaches have not been recorded in all 32 AQMAs, as Sarah Boyack suggested earlier. That was a prime example of partnership working. The installation of the tail gas unit has successfully addressed air pollution. Petroineos worked with the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, the Health and Safety Executive and Falkirk Council to find a solution.
Although the positive trend in Grangemouth is encouraging, it is still important to address the emissions from energy-related sources and the contribution that they make to air pollution. For example, 79.4 per cent of sulphur dioxide emissions emanate from energy industries, as is the case in my constituency, but the national low emissions framework that is proposed in “Cleaner Air for Scotland: The Road to a Healthier Future”
“will apply only to local authorities where transport is the main contributor to air quality problems.”
Therefore, although the Government’s action in thoroughly addressing transport-related emissions, which are certainly a large contributor to pollution, is laudable, the issue of AQMAs that are declared for emissions that do not stem from transport-related sources also needs attention.
Specifically, if the Government is to be successful in making significant progress towards the revocation of all AQMAs by 2020, it will have to expand its actions for change beyond the scope of implementing the national low emissions framework. I look forward to the Government’s introduction of the proposals that will stem from a comprehensive review of the local air quality management system, which is due to take place in 2016.
A promising aspect of the cleaner air for Scotland initiative is the desire of the CAFS governance group to combine air quality and climate change policies in order to achieve Scotland’s renewable energy targets while improving air quality. The initiative rightly points out that air pollution often originates from activities that contribute to climate change and, in the cases in which those two policies do not naturally coincide, the strategy aims to ensure that they are not at odds.
My constituency may have a role to play in achieving that goal, as Grangemouth’s place in Scotland’s renewable energy future could feature a carbon capture and storage plant. The idea of such a plant is currently undergoing research and feasibility studies. Summit Power’s proposed Captain Clean Energy plant in Grangemouth would deliver low-carbon energy and very low levels of air pollutants. As such, it would be an example of a plant that would jointly benefit climate change and air quality policies.
The minister’s vision of Scotland’s air quality becoming the best in Europe is an admirable goal and one that Scotland should certainly strive towards. In launching Scotland’s first distinct air quality strategy, the Government has demonstrated its commitment to take seriously the health hazards that are posed by air pollution, and to pursue the substantial benefits that Scotland stands to gain from cleaner air. As the Government pursues other policies across its agenda, I urge ministers and Government officials to keep in mind the goals that are laid out in the initiative, and to work to achieve them in conjunction with their own policies. Clean air should be an innate right for all Scots, and providing it is a commendable goal of this Government.
As a Volkswagen owner and a former Volkswagen Audi enthusiast, I had hoped to touch on the Volkswagen fiasco—that is not the name of a new model that the company is planning to launch—but I am afraid that time has run out. However, I am keen to hear what response ministers have received from their UK counterparts in relation to their calls for a co-ordinated response on the Volkswagen emissions scandal. I look forward to hearing what the minister has to say.
17:38
Good afternoon, Presiding Officer. I thank Sarah Boyack for securing this debate on air pollution in Scotland, and I look forward to its outcome.
Air pollution and the environment used to be the Green Party’s baby, but not any more. The general public and, more important, our children are very interested in the world that we live in. Air pollution in Scotland is not being successfully dealt with, because Scotland keeps breaching the European air quality legal limits. I ask the Government to tell me what I can say to my constituents and our young about what it is doing to fix that trend. What plans will be implemented that have not yet been deployed? What moneys will be available, particularly to local authorities, to support delivery of the Government’s policy? What additional public transport is planned to help to reduce toxic emissions?
We in Scotland must address toxic emissions. We should force rogue car manufacturers to pay compensation not only to the owners of the vehicles in question, but to the Governments that have been affected—ours included. Some people might say that that is a bit unfair, but I do not agree. If car manufacturers are guilty they should pay for the profits that they have made from their deception. I also think that Volkswagen is not the only manufacturer involved. I understand that several other manufacturers are being investigated as I speak.
Most important, we in Scotland should continue the good work that our schools are doing, by working with children and parents to increase awareness. Such work is paying huge dividends. I see it in my own house; I am impressed by how aware of the issues my grandchildren are. I was not so educated about such matters. I am regularly corrected on how I dispose of refuse, and my grandson regularly tells me to switch off the car engine when we are waiting for someone. Those are small things that all add up and affect our environment. The sooner we get to the grips with that, the better.
The Scottish National Party Government must improve the quality of citizens’ lives, and I genuinely wish it every success in doing so, because that will benefit us all. The Government has perhaps sometimes let itself down by not pursuing the issue more vigorously. It is not just the Government but all of us who are guilty of taking our eye off the ball.
I am impressed by how much more aware our young people are than I was in my time. I am even more impressed by how much they care about the world in which they live. They are worried about what will happen to their environment and they want us to do more for them. I was discussing the motion at home last night and I said that I was not going to speak in the debate, but my grandson said, “Granddad, you have to.” I am fulfilling that obligation. I wish the Government well.
17:42
I congratulate Sarah Boyack on bringing this important subject to the Parliament, and I join her in expressing deep concern at the figures that Friends of the Earth highlighted.
Poor air quality can have devastating health consequences, and high levels of nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter are particularly problematic. James Cant, the director of British Heart Foundation Scotland, said recently:
“Our research has continuously shown that levels of air pollution can shorten people’s lives and increase their risk of heart disease and stroke”.
The problem in Scotland is clear for all to see. As many members said, Scotland has been breaking the European Union’s ambient air quality directive, particularly in relation to nitrogen dioxide, small particulate matter, or PM10, and fine particulate matter, or PM2.5. We know the consequences of that for health; we also know that to a large extent the cause is road traffic emissions.
If we want to find out what is happening in my city, we can turn to a report to City of Edinburgh Council’s transport and environment committee, dated 25 August 2015. Such reviews of air quality are required under the Environment Act 1995—I remember participating in the process for what is a good piece of legislation from a previous Conservative Government; I do not often say that, but there, I have just said it.
There are five air quality management areas in this city—by “this city”, I mean Edinburgh and Leith. It is important to include Leith, because, unfortunately, one of the zones is in Leith; it is centred on Great Junction Street but extends to Commercial Street and Bernard Street. There is nitrogen dioxide monitoring in Duke Street, almost as if the problem is expected to increase because of changes to traffic arrangements in Leith Walk. There is also an air quality management area covering Inverleith, which is not so well known.
The report to which I referred also says that PM10 is a particular problem in Salamander Street in Leith, stating:
“Should measured levels of PM10 in 2015 not reduce in line with the current trend, an”
air quality management area
“will be necessary at Salamander Street.”
I very much agree with what Sarah Boyack’s motion says about “low emission zones” being necessary
“where air-quality management areas are currently in place.”
I am also minded to support the proposal from Friends of the Earth today that we should ban the more polluting vehicles from such zones. Heavy goods vehicles are a bit of a problem, but so are old diesel buses—that is perhaps not so well known. We must replace older buses or upgrade them with cleaner engine technology. In fact, we must ensure that we deploy the best buses on roads that pass through air quality management areas.
I have two final points, one of which is that the issue related to Volkswagen and other cars needs to be investigated more widely by improved emissions tests. Finally, there is the tram. The City of Edinburgh Council has a big decision on the tram tomorrow. If the tram goes to Leith, that will clearly help with air quality there. I believe that the tram will have to go to Leith anyway in due course, not least to widen the customer base for financial reasons.
I take this opportunity to say that I was wrongly quoted in The National last Thursday. I am not often quoted in The National, but I appeared there because a journalist, through no fault of his own, lifted a quotation from the Edinburgh Evening News website that were words spoken by Colin Howden but attributed to me. The minister will therefore be reassured to know that I do not believe that the investment in the trams should be a priority for Scottish Government investment—that was Colin Howden’s view. I thought that I should take this opportunity to say that because I know that certain members of the party opposite read The National from time to time.
That sets the record straight. I now call on the Minister for Transport and Islands, Derek Mackay, to close on behalf of the Government—seven minutes, or thereby, please.
17:46
I start by saying that I feel Malcolm Chisholm’s pain at being badly treated by the press. Sometimes a right to reply on our own record is not achieved—never mind addressing the issue around misquoting.
I challenge Hanzala Malik on the question of whether green issues are solely the concern of the Green Party. No, they are not; I think that they can be shared by all. A personal revelation for members is that I probably came into politics because of the issue of air quality. My involvement at the age of 13 in a campaign against a toxic waste incinerator in my home town in Renfrew first got me into politics. That is an example of linkages and a reflection of the enthusiasm of youth. I am delighted to do my bit now as transport minister on the very significant and serious issue of air quality.
I, too, congratulate Sarah Boyack on bringing the motion and the debate to the chamber. It is of course quite timely, because just two weeks ago our Government launched its “Cleaner Air for Scotland” strategy at the third annual Scottish transport emissions partnership conference. Of course, it is Dr Aileen McLeod who leads as minister on the issue of the environment, but transport has a very important role. I suppose that reflects the fact that the issue crosses many Government portfolios and that they all contribute to addressing it.
It is important to reflect that there have been reductions in certain harmful emissions. I do not say that out of complacency; I say it because we learn lessons from how we achieve progress in certain areas. Angus MacDonald was right to touch on the industrial issues, although they were more issues in the past. Tougher and tighter industrial regulations, improved fuel quality, cleaner vehicles and an increased focus on sustainable transport have made a difference and will continue to make a difference.
Although we are generally meeting domestic and European air quality targets across much of Scotland, there are of course hotspots of poorer air quality in a number of urban areas. A range of actions takes place to address that.
Our cleaner air for Scotland strategy contains a distinctive set of actions that will improve air quality. The strategy also recognises that there are some shared actions that will help to improve air quality and to mitigate climate change. In Scotland, we have set more stringent air quality objectives for particulate matter than the rest of the UK and Europe. The Scottish Government will continue to work with our agencies—SEPA, Transport Scotland, Health Protection Scotland and others—to reduce further air pollution and its effects on human and environmental health, which members covered in the debate.
In partnership with the UK Government and the other Administrations, we are consulting on updated actions for the plan to secure compliance with EU air quality legislation. “Cleaner Air for Scotland” is our first national air quality strategy and sets out a vision of what Scotland could be in relation to air quality—we could be the best in Europe at tackling the issue, and of course there is the massive impact that we could have if we reduced health inequalities.
The action plan covers six objectives: transport, health, placemaking—many members have touched on planning—climate change, communications, and legislation and policy, the goal being to protect human health and natural environments and reduce health inequalities.
There are new initiatives that will help to take forward the plan. A national modelling framework will provide a standard air quality assessment methodology for use across Scotland at the regional and local scale. A national low emission framework will set out a procedure for local authorities and our agencies to determine effective measures that will address air quality issues at the local level. That does not need to be three years away—it can come sooner than that—but it has to be robust. The World Health Organization guideline values for particulate matter will be adopted into legislation, making Scotland the first country in Europe to do that. A national air quality awareness campaign will also be developed to inform key audiences and encourage behavioural change.
The framework in the action plan is comprehensive. Hanzala Malik asked what we are doing. I suggest that he looks at the strategy once again, which commits us to a range of actions. I think that he will see that there is that cross-agency, cross-sector impetus to deliver change and improvement.
I am aware of the strategy. I was asking what else the Government is doing—what new things—because we have been failing our EU limits.
To look at transport specifically—my own brief—there is a further move to a low-carbon economy, more electric vehicles, more charging points, and more incentives to encourage people to move to low-emission vehicles and electric vehicles. Of course, there is no controversy around electric vehicles because there are no fossil fuel emissions from the tail pipes of such vehicles.
There is also investment in the railways to encourage increasing patronage, and there is the electrification of the railways, which will further decarbonise public transport. There is also integrated transport to encourage more people out of their cars and into public transport as well as active travel.
We have the policy set in the national transport strategy, which I am currently refreshing, but by way of finance there is the Scottish green bus fund, which Jamie McGrigor referred to, and the switched on Scotland campaign to encourage a move to electric vehicles, which I have touched on. The move to electric vehicles felt quite futuristic, but there have probably been more sales in the past year than we have had in the past five years put together.
The Scottish Government now invests more than £1 billion per year on public transport and sustainable travel.
Can I ask the minister to consider the issue of car clubs? We have had a car club in Edinburgh for 17-odd years and it has enabled a lot of people not to have to buy a car, as was mentioned by one of the minister’s colleagues. It would be good to have easier access to better vehicles.
I think that we should do more on car clubs and a range of transport initiatives through incentives. We need to work together with the private sector, with employers thinking about it more clearly as well. Many car clubs are using electric vehicles because the journeys are short, so there is a win-win situation in respect of those schemes. I absolutely support them.
As regards the allocation to reduce the carbon impact of transport, the Scottish Government has allocated more than £200 million over 2012-13 to 2014-15 to reduce the carbon impact of transport through active travel, low-carbon vehicles and congestion reduction. We have allocated more than £300 million to support low-carbon transport between 2013-14 and 2015-16. Compared with 2013-14, we have increased investment in active travel by more than 80 per cent—from £21.35 million in 2013-14 to £39.2 million in 2015-16. In the same period, our overall capital budget decreased by 26 per cent.
The Volkswagen scandal has undermined public confidence. We will work with the UK Government on the issue; we support the UK Government approach in advocating tougher real driving emission testing. I am happy to share a fuller definition of that with members.
Scotland has a wonderful natural environment. Of course we want that to be reflected in our air quality, and we want to take all the necessary actions at the national level and at the most local level to make the desired impact on tackling the environmental justice and health inequalities issues and to improve the overall prosperity of local communities. Clearly transport has a role to play, and I will ensure that, within my ministerial brief, we do everything that we can to realise the ambitions of the cleaner air for Scotland strategy.
I thank all the members for taking part in this important debate.
Meeting closed at 17:55.Previous
Decision Time