Speeches by Gardiner.

“There is acidification, eutrophication, ground-level ozone, but I love that sound, because people understand it in a way that they do not understand O3.”

“Tell us about pollinators and the impact on pollinators.”

“You have answered a lot of questions about recommendations. Are there any further recommendations that you have not mentioned that you would like to see this Committee including in its report?”

“If I can just try to compress or hone the recommendation that you would like to see, it would be that we should be suggesting to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs that it works with the Department for Transport to assess the impact of such future transport fuels?”

“I ask the Minister to reinforce the fact that those good community relations are built not simply on the toleration of the views of others but on—”

“The Prime Minister has the right to expect that his senior civil servants will always tell him the truth and the whole truth. He will recall that Mrs Thatcher used to say of Lord Young that she liked David because he always brought her solutions and not problems, while her other Ministers brought her problems. Does he …”

“The hate-filled attack on the Kenton synagogue in my constituency is the latest in the series of disgusting attacks on Jewish buildings that the Minister outlined. But these are more than attacks on buildings; they are calculated attacks on the whole Jewish community, designed to destabilise and instil widespread fear.…”

“I wanted to come on to that, so that is a nice segue. The environmental indicator framework shows changes in the estimated emissions of five key pollutants. Tell us about the other emerging pollutants that we could push higher up the priority level.”

“Yes. In fact, this Committee in its 2010 hearing said that the cost was between £8 billion and £10 billion. Now, the updated figure we have is a £20 billion to £27 billion cost to the economy as a result of those health impacts. Given that you agree with the UKHSA on the 29,000 to 43,000 figure—and I am not asking you …”

“Ozone, O3, yes.”

“Professor Clift, tell me about scale. You have given us some of the detail, but the UK Health Security Agency has said that we are talking about 29,000 to 43,000 premature deaths a year. Would you corroborate that?”

“Of course, you talked about the in-utero impacts in your opening remarks. Explain to the Committee what it is about these ultra-fine particles that means they can affect even your baby in the womb.”

“Sorry, Ms Legge. If the Chair allows me time, I will come to you as well. Professor Clift, you talked about the ageing process. The 2023 Imperial College study specifically talked about cognitive decline and dementia. Can you elaborate on that? That, up until recently, has not been factored into all the morbidity and e…”

“But you are saying, “Okay, thus far and no further”, and then you can begin to tackle the residual installations that are already there.”

“I am glad you gave a shout out for Mums for Lungs. They do a great job. Behind you, Simon Birkett from Clean Air London is nodding away. It is great to have campaigners who have been on the ball for so long. Thank you very much.”

“Could you say something about the consistency of local authority action in different parts of the country?”

“I take the Chair’s point about taking the public with you, as your study showed. Could you perhaps think of a ban on new installations as the first stage, so you are not stopping somebody using something on which they have already spent a lot of money?”

“I am not against information and labelling.”

“That sounds to me suspiciously like the DEFRA consultation on domestic wood burning. Of course, it has not proposed a phase out of wood burning in urban areas, which is what you and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health have proposed. It has simply proposed labelling and information. Again, crystallise this…”

“You have a nose. You can smell them out.”