General Election 2024
July 2024’s general election was our chance to stand up for our children and vote for clean air, climate action and a better, healthier future for us all. We called for strong action to tackle air pollution to be at the top of the agenda.
We urged our next government to:
Implement a robust Clean Air Act, with a commitment to reduce air pollution to interim World Health Organization guidelines by 2030 at the latest, including a pathway to full alignment across the country as soon as possible.
Launch a far-reaching public health campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of wood burning and to disincentivise the purchase of stoves.
Provide funds and resources to roll out the School Streets scheme widely across the country.
Our asks in detail:
1. Implement a robust Clean Air Act, with a commitment to reduce air pollution to interim World Health Organization guidelines by 2030 at the latest, including a pathway to full alignment across the country as soon as possible.
We called on the next government to implement a Clean Air Act that establishes the human right to breathe clean air, precisely and explicitly in UK law.
This Act should require the UK to ensure that air pollution is lowered to at least interim World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines by 2030 across the country, and confirm a commitment to full alignment with the WHO guidelines in the shortest time frame.
The health-based WHO guidelines for air pollution, revised in 2021, are far more stringent than current UK legal limits and are based on thousands of articles evidencing that air pollution harms health at significantly lower levels than previously understood. Even the interim targets set by the WHO, at 10ug/m3 fine particle pollution (PM2.5) and 20ug/m3 nitrogen dioxide (NO2), are significantly lower than current UK limits.
At the time of the general election campaign, different EU bodies were proposing the same levels to be achieved by the EU Member States by 2030.
Committing to these guidelines will realistically require diesel vehicles and the burning of wood to be phased out:
Diesel engines have been identified as the largest transport source of roadside nitrogen oxides (NOx) in the UK (figure 6, page 10). In order to reduce NOx and NO2 levels sufficiently to reach the WHO guideline levels, we called on the Government to discourage people from buying diesel vehicles and to set a target for England to be diesel-free by 2030, with limited exemptions.
Wood burning is a major contributor to toxic particle pollution in the UK. We urged the next government to phase out the sale of new wood stoves and burning overall in domestic settings where alternative modes of heating are feasible, by 2028. We also called on them to give local authorities and Mayors new, effective powers and funding to stop unlawful burning. Existing powers to address burning in smoke control zones are completely ineffective.
2. Launch a far-reaching public health campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of wood burning and disincentivise the purchase of stoves.
In the UK, domestic combustion is one of the biggest sources of PM2.5, and PM2.5 is probably the most harmful air pollutant, being associated with a range of conditions, including decreased lung development and function, exacerbation of asthma, allergies, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, pulmonary fibrosis and an increased risk of lung cancer. Overall average levels of PM2.5 across the country don’t take into account the toxically high levels of pollution emitted by wood burning in open fires or stoves that regularly enter neighbouring homes and gardens.
Emissions of PM2.5 from domestic wood burning grew in the years to 2024, partly due to wood burning being successfully marketed as a sustainable lifestyle choice and framed as an aesthetically pleasing home heating option.
We urged the next government to deliver a properly funded, national wood burning awareness campaign, to inform and educate consumers on the impacts of burning with the clear aim of disincentivising the public from buying and installing burners. We suggested this include national billboards, print media, online media, social media and television. In 2023, too much of the Defra-funded awareness raising was aimed at asking consumers to “burn better” whilst the sale of wood burning stoves soared.
3. Provide funds and resources to roll out the School Streets scheme widely across the country.
All children deserve a healthy and safe start to the day. School Streets are proven to reduce traffic and increase safety; not only that but travelling actively to school improves mood, behaviour and confidence, increases attention levels and enhances performance.
There has been a huge rise in the number of School Streets in London since 2020, with more and more local authorities taking up the scheme outside London. Millions of children are yet to benefit from cleaner air around their schools though, including those at secondary schools.
We called on the next government to create national guidance and resources for local authorities to map out best practice methods for implementing a School Street, to allow a quick and seamless roll-out of the scheme widely across England. We also urged this guidance be coupled with adequate funding to enable School Streets to be implemented and enforced, without the need to rely on volunteer parents, carers or school staff.
We also suggested that alternative options for those schools that cannot have a School Street be factored into the allocation of resources and funding - for instance funding for green screens to reduce the level of pollution within the school grounds, or moving school entrances and playgrounds.
Email campaign to keep air pollution on the agenda
Hundreds of you wrote to Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer to ask them to take action.
Image: ComposedPix/Shutterstock.com
Image: Martin Suker/Shutterstock.com
We were concerned that there was so little mention of air pollution in the general election campaigning period or in manifestos. We set up an email campaign to help people email Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer to ask them to keep action to tackle this public health crisis on their agendas. Thank you to those who emailed and helped us keep the pressure up.