13:38 Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)

Our efforts to combat climate change can also be harnessed to drive quality improvements. One of the reasons for recent progress on air quality is the UK’s success in shifting away from coal to cleaner ways to generate electricity, and of course the transition to ultra low emission driving is crucial both for our climate and our air quality goals. Encouraging cycling, walking and active travel of course has real benefits in terms of health, air quality and congestion, and I applaud projects that, for example, encourage parents and children to walk to school, but care does have to be taken with these schemes, such as cycle lanes and low traffic neighbourhoods, because if they are introduced in a hurry in the wrong place without appropriate consultation, they can inadvertently worsen air quality because of the consequent congestion they cause.

Lastly, I ask Ministers to give priority to tackling air quality in London, because this is where the problem is most serious. London received funding for air quality as part of the £5.7 billion Transport for London funding settlement in 2015, and has received further support for individual projects of about £150 million. That includes money to retrofit buses to reduce emissions, and all London buses were due to be Euro 6 compliant by the end of last year. However, I am concerned that the Mayor of London has not made more progress on air quality or on delivering zero-emission buses, despite the significant resources he has been given by the Government to do that. His plan for a zero-emission bus fleet will take another 17 years to complete. Shaun Bailey believes progress needs to be much faster and has set out how he would do that as a Conservative Mayor for London. I am also worried that the Mayor’s mismanagement of TfL’s budget, including through the lengthy delays to Crossrail, will make it harder to deliver the investment we need to buy cleaner, greener buses.

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