Environmental Audit Committee says Government must ensure legal air pollution limits can be met and maintained

Date added: 1 December, 2015

The Environmental Audit Committee report on a Heathrow runway, says in relation to air pollution: “Before the Government makes its decision, it should make its own assessment of the likely costs of preventing an adverse impact on health from expansion at Heathrow and publish it.” Also that the government should not consider a new runway merely if air quality could be worse elsewhere in London than in the Heathrow area. The government will need to demonstrate that legal air pollution limits can be met and maintained “even when the expanded airport is operating at full capacity. Heathrow’s existing air quality strategy should also be revised to meet the new targets. Failing this, Heathrow should not be allowed to expand.” As for not using the new runway if air quality is too poor: “The Government should not approve expansion at Heathrow until it has developed a robust framework for delivery and accountability. This should have binding, real-world milestones and balance the need for investor certainty with assurances that a successor Government cannot set the conditions aside if they become inconvenient.” In distinguishing pollution from the airport, or from other sources: “The Government must establish clearly delineated responsibilities for meeting air quality limits before deciding to go ahead with the scheme” to avoid future legal and commercial risks.
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Environmental Audit Committee report

1 December 2015

REPORT: Airports Commission: Carbon Emissions, Air Quality & Noise

The report’s Conclusions and recommendations

5 Conclusion (Page 26)

89. The Government should not approve Heathrow expansion until Heathrow ltd. can demonstrate that it accepts and will comply with the Airports Commission conditions, including a night flight ban, that it is committed to covering the costs of surface transport improvements; that it is possible to reconcile Heathrow expansion with legal air pollution limits, and that an expanded Heathrow would be less noisy than a two runway Heathrow. In each case – climate change, air quality and noise – it needs to set out concrete proposals for mitigation alongside clear responsibilities and milestones against which performance can be measured. It should report regularly to Parliament, through this Committee and others, on progress. The Government should not avoid or defer these issues. To do so would increase the risks of the project: delay through legal challenge, unquantifiable costs resulting from unclear responsibilities, economic risks through constraint of other sectors to meet increased aviation emissions and longterm costs to public health from the impact of air pollution and noise.

Introduction

1. The Government has said it will set “a clear direction” on airport expansion by the end of the year. If the Government is minded to go ahead with the Commission’s recommendation, it is likely that this will be followed by a further period of consultation. The Government should use this period to address the recommendations in our report, before making a final decision on whether to go ahead with the scheme and seek the approval of Parliament through a National Policy Statement or Hybrid Bill. (Paragraph 4)

Air Quality

11. Before the Government makes its decision, it should make its own assessment of the likely costs of preventing an adverse impact on health from expansion at Heathrow and publish it. (Paragraph 33)

12. Many of our witnesses interpreted the Commission’s interpretation of the Air Quality Directive as implying that significant increases in NO2 resulting from Heathrow expansion would be allowable because of worse performance elsewhere in London. This would make no sense in terms of protecting public health and wellbeing. The Government should make clear that this is not the position it intends to take when assessing the scheme for compliance with the Directive. (Paragraph 43)

13. Before the Government makes its decision, it will need to demonstrate that its revised air quality strategy can deliver compliance with legal pollution limits within the timescales agreed in the finalised plan to be approved by the European Commission. It will also need to show that this can be maintained even when the expanded airport is operating at full capacity. Heathrow’s existing air quality strategy should also be revised to meet the new targets. Failing this, Heathrow should not be allowed to expand. (Paragraph 47)

14. The Commission recommended that the release of capacity at an expanded airport should be conditional on air quality standards being met. The Government should not approve expansion at Heathrow until it has developed a robust framework for delivery and accountability. This should have binding, real-world milestones and balance the need for investor certainty with assurances that a successor Government cannot set the conditions aside if they become inconvenient. (Paragraph 50)

15. Disaggregating the impacts of Heathrow on local traffic, and therefore air quality, is complex and contested by the airport and the local authorities. The Government must establish clearly delineated responsibilities for meeting air quality limits before deciding to go ahead with the scheme. We foresee significant legal and commercial risks further down the line if this is not done, for example, if central Government tried to hold local authorities to account for a failure to meet the targets that they attributed to airport expansion or to penalise the airport for pollution that it attributed to background traffic. (Paragraph 53)

16. The aspiration of moving the majority of journeys to public transport with no increase in road traffic is shared by all. Transport for London told us this would require large-scale modal shift of the scale seen in central London over the last 15 years. However, there is no agreement between them and the Commission over the extent of infrastructure improvements required to achieve this, the resulting costs or, by implication, the extent to which individual parties would meet those costs. Before the Government decides to go ahead with Heathrow expansion it should set out its assessment of what would be required in terms of infrastructure improvements, agreed responsibilities for funding and milestones for completion. This should be part of a wider transport strategy for West London to minimise the risk of unintended consequences. The Government must make a binding commitment that Heathrow will fund the infrastructure improvements necessary to accommodate an expanded Heathrow. (Paragraph 61)

Full EAC report at

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmselect/cmenvaud/389/389.pdf