High court gives ministers deadline of April for draft of tougher air pollution plan and final by 31st July 2017
Date added: 22 November, 2016
On 2nd November, environmental lawyers ClientEarth inflicted a humiliating legal defeat on the UK government (the 2nd in 18 months) when the high court ruled that DEFRA plans to tackle illegal levels of air pollution in many parts of the UK were unlawful. The court gave the government 7 days to agree on the next steps, but it rejected the proposal from ClientEarth for an 8 month timetable for the improvements, saying it needed till September 2017. Now the high court judge, Mr Justice Garnham, has ruled that DEFRA must must publish a stronger air quality draft plan by 24th April 2017 and a final one by 31st July 2017. The judge also ordered the government to publish the data on which it will base its new plan. In his judgement on 2nd, the judge said it was “remarkable” that ministers knew they were using over-optimistic pollution modelling, based on flawed lab tests of diesel vehicles rather than actual emissions on the road, but proceeded anyway. He also ruled that ClientEarth can go back to court if it deems the government’s draft plan, due in April 2017, is once again not good enough to cut pollution rapidly. Alan Andrews, ClientEarth’s air quality lawyer, said: “We will be watching on behalf of everyone living in the UK and will return to court if the government is failing.” ClientEarth believes measure such as a diesel scrappage scheme and other measures that would cost money, that the Treasury has been unwilling to approve. . Tweet
High court gives ministers deadline for tougher air pollution plan
UK environment department must publish stronger air quality plan by July 2017, after high court judge says its suggested date was ‘far too leisurely’
The government is being forced to deliver an effective plan to tackle the UK’s air pollution crisis within eight months, after a high court judge rejected a longer timetable as “far too leisurely”.
Environmental lawyers ClientEarth inflicted a humiliating legal defeat on ministers earlier in November – its second in 18 months – when the high court ruled that ministers’ plans to tackle illegal levels of air pollution in many UK cities and towns were so poor they were unlawful.
But on Monday, (21st November) Mr Justice Garnham ordered the government to produce a draft plan by 24 April 2017 and a final one by 31 July 2017.
An earlier government plan to tackle air pollution was declared illegal in April 2015 and ministers were ordered to produce a new strategy, which it did in December 2015. But that plan was also found not to meet the law’s requirement of cutting nitrogen dioxide (NO2) pollution to legal levels in the “shortest possible time”.
James Thornton, the CEO of ClientEarth, said: “It is very clear that the government must now act swiftly and decisively to protect British people from toxic and illegal air pollution. The government has said throughout this process that it takes air pollution seriously. Until now, it’s actions have not lived up to this claim. Now is the time for the government to prove that it truly cares about people’s health.”
After the most recent court defeat, prime minister Theresa May said: “There is more to do and we will do it.”
A spokeswoman for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said on Monday: “We are determined to cut harmful emissions. Our plans have always followed the best available evidence and we have always been clear that we are ready to update them if necessary. We can now confirm a timetable for updating our plans next year and further improving the nation’s air quality.”
The judge also ordered the government to publish the data on which it will base its new plan.
Earlier in November he said it was “remarkable” that ministers knew they were using over-optimistic pollution modelling, based on flawed lab tests of diesel vehicles rather than actual emissions on the road, but proceeded anyway.
The existing government plan is for just six clean air zones (CAZs) – Birmingham, Leeds, Nottingham, Derby, Southampton and London – where some polluting diesel vehicles are charged to enter city centres.
Andrews added: “If the government are at all serious about complying with the court order, a national network of CAZs must be part of their plans, which means including the dirtiest diesel cars and creating far more than the current six.”
NO2 has been at illegal levels in 90% of the country’s air quality zones since 2010 and stems largely from diesel vehicles.
ClientEarth also argued in court that an effective plan would require other measures including a scrappage scheme for older diesel vehicles, retrofits of HGVs and more funding for public transport and cycling and walking schemes.
Documents revealed during the recent high court case showed the Treasury had blocked initial government plans for 16 CAZs in towns and cities blighted by air pollution, due to concern about the political impact of angering motorists.
Both the environment and transport departments also recommended changes to vehicle excise duty rates to encourage the purchase of low-pollution vehicles. But the Treasury also rejected that idea, along with a scrappage scheme for older diesels.
Drivers of polluting diesel vehicles could soon be charged to enter many city centres across Britain, after the government accepted in the high court on Wednesday that its current plans to tackle the nation’s air pollution crisis were so poor they broke the law.
The humiliating legal defeat is the second in 18 months and ends years of inadequate action and delays to tackle the problem which causes 50,000 early deaths every year.
Ministers are now bound to implement new measures to cut toxic air quickly and the prime minister, Theresa May, indicated the government would this time respond positively: “There is more to do and we will do it.”
The most likely measure is using charges to deter polluting diesel vehicles from “clean air zones” in urban centres, which could be in place next year in London and in 2018 in Birmingham and other cities. Nitrogen dioxide, the pollutant at the heart of the legal case, has been at illegal levels in 90% of the country’s air quality zones since 2010 and largely stems from diesel vehicles.
EU law requires the government to cut the illegal pollution in the “shortest possible time” but legal NGO ClientEarth, which brought the cases, argued the government’s plans ignored many measures that could help achieve this.
The government said it would not appeal against the decision and agreed in court to discuss with ClientEarth a new timetable for more realistic pollution modelling and the steps needed to bring pollution levels down to legal levels. The parties will return to court in a week but if agreement cannot be reached, the judge could impose a timetable upon the government.
At prime minister’s questions, May said: “We now recognise that Defra [the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs] has to look at the judgment made by the courts and we now have to look again at the proposals we will bring forward. Nobody in this house doubts the importance of the issue of air quality.”
The government’s own estimates show air pollution causes at least £27.5bn a year and in April MPs called the issue a “public health emergency”.
ClientEarth lawyers said they looked forward to working with Defra ministers to make a genuine attempt to rapidly cut pollution to legal limits throughout the UK, including a national network of clean air zones by 2018. “The government will have to be tougher on diesel,” said James Thornton, CEO of ClientEarth. “If you put in clean air zones, it works overnight.”
“Today’s ruling lays the blame at the door of the government for its complacency in failing to tackle the problem quickly and credibly,” said the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who took part in the case. “In so doing they have let down millions of people the length and breadth of the country.” Khan aims to have pollution charging in place in central London by 2017 and across the area within the north and south circular roads by 2019.
ClientEarth defeated the government on the same issue at the supreme court in April 2015. Ministers were then ordered to draw up a new action plan, but on Wednesday that new plan was also found to be illegal. The UK’s duty to cut illegal air pollution as quickly as possible derives from EU laws but the action required following the high court defeat will be taken well before Brexit takes place. The government has said it will transfer all EU rules into UK law but, post-Brexit, the government could revise air pollution legislation.
Both the environment and transport departments recommended changes to vehicle excise duty rates to encourage the purchase of low-pollution vehicles. But the Treasury also rejected that idea, along with a scrappage scheme for older diesels, which ClientEarth supports.
The government’s draft plan had envisaged 16 clean air zones, but in the final plan the number was cut, on the grounds of costs to business, to just five outside London: Birmingham, Leeds, Nottingham, Derby and Southampton. The further cities and towns that now need to introduce clean air zones will be determined by the more realistic pollution modelling ordered by the court on Wednesday.
Keith Taylor, Green party MEP, said: “The failure highlighted by the judge today is as much moral as it is legal: ministers have displayed an extremely concerning attitude of indifference towards their duty to safeguard the health of British citizens.”
High Court win by ClientEarth on air pollution casts more doubt on the possibility of adding a Heathrow runway
November 2, 2016
The environmental law group, ClientEarth, has won its High Court case against the Government over its failure to tackle illegal air pollution across the UK. The judge agreed that the UK government had failed to take measures that would bring the UK into compliance with the law “as soon as possible” and ministers knew over optimistic pollution modelling was being used. AEF (the Aviation Environment Federation) says this failure by the government to get NO2 levels down discredits the air quality plan that formed the basis for the Government’s argument that a new runway at Heathrow would neither cause not exacerbate legal breaches in NO2 levels. Required to publish an updated plan for UK air quality, Defra produced one in December 2015. This brought forward the anticipated date of compliance to 2025 for London – just in time for the opening of a new runway according to the Airports Commission’s anticipated timeline. But the plans appeared to rely on new, more optimistic forecasts of emissions from diesel vehicles without presenting substantive policy proposals to actually deliver improvements. A new runway at either Heathrow or Gatwick would lead to higher levels of air pollution, and the new court ruling confirms that compliance should not be based on over optimistic modelling – and government needs instead to take action to cut pollution levels.
