Early Day Motions: Indoor Air Quality and Air Quality Enforcement

Please find below Early Day Motions that MPs are free to sign. If you support their content then you can e-mail your local MP encouraging them to support the following EDMs.

EDM Indoor Air Quality in the Environment Bill

This house notes that the Royal College of Paediatrics & Child Health report “The inside story: Health Effects of Indoor Air Quality on Children and Young People”; that children spend ninety five per cent of their time indoors; further notes that indoors they are exposed to indoor air pollution from construction materials emitting volatile organic compounds and formaldehyde, lack of ventilation, use of cleaning and cosmetic products, candles, cooking, showering, damp and mould; further notes that indoor air pollution causes respiratory ill-health in particular when combined with outdoor air pollution; calls upon the Government to include indoor air pollution within the Environment Bill, in particular in relation to schools, hospitals and public buildings, to provide for better ventilation and building regulations to ensure healthy air flow and to regulate in favour of public health in respect to known dangerous substances and to adopt a precautionary approach to new substances until there is evidence of their safety.

EDM Environment Bill Air Quality Enforcement

This House notes that, according to the Royal College of Physicians, air pollution accounts for 64,000 premature deaths at a cost of £20 billion each year; that enforceable EU air pollution targets will no longer apply after December 2020; that the Government has accepted World Health Organization (WHO) air pollution guidelines; calls on the Government to include in the Environment Bill the requirement that PM2.5 reaches the WHO guideline annual mean concentration of 10 (μg/m3) by 2030 with interim targets of 12 (μg/m3) by 2025 and 15 (μg/m3) by 2021; and urges that these limits are enforced by the proposed Office for Environmental Protection through fines that are then paid to the NHS towards the health costs of air pollution and to local authorities to reduce air pollution.