§ Mr. Win GriffithsTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the monitoring of transport-related air pollution.
§ Mr. AtkinsThe Government fund a number of air quality monitoring stations which measure levels of transport-related air pollutants. This includes 43 continuous automatic sites of which:
- —29 monitor ozone,
- —24 monitor nitrogen dioxide,
- —19 monitor carbon monoxide,
- —12 monitor fine particles (PM10)
- —and 7 monitor 26 hydrocarbons including benzene. 1, 3, butadiene and ozone precursors.
Nitrogen dioxide is also monitored at over 1,100 sites in the United Kingdom in collaboration with local authorities using non-automatic techniques.
In the second anniversary report of the 1990 Environment White Paper "This Common Inheritance" the Government made a commitment to extend their urban air quality monitoring network to cover all major cities by 1997 where transport-derived pollutants are expected to be at their highest. In addition, the Government are currently considering responses to the recently published consultation paper on "The Future of Air Quality Monitoring Networks in the United Kingdom", in which proposals were made to develop a framework which draws local and national air quality monitoring together into a coherent quality assured network.