Air Quality (Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles Database) (England and Wales) Regulations 2019

Motion to Approve

Moved by

That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 31 January be approved.

My Lords, this instrument, if approved by Parliament and made, will require licensing authorities in England and Wales to supply certain information relating to taxis and private hire vehicles—PHVs—that have been licensed to operate in their areas. It enables the Secretary of State to create a database to hold that information and for it to be shared for enforcement of local air quality measures. This database will be used by local authorities for the purposes of enforcing locally introduced clean air zones. These zones will apply charges in respect of taxis and private hire vehicles, and the information on the database will enable local authorities to differentiate taxis and PHVs from other vehicles when entering the zone.

The instrument makes provision necessary for implementing the United Kingdom’s obligations under the ambient air quality directive 2008/50/EC and otherwise in the respect of management of air quality. It is made using powers under the Environment Act 1995. Air quality is a devolved matter. However, the regulations extend to England and Wales and apply to all 315 taxi and PHV licensing authorities, including Transport for London. Given the geographic location of charging clean air zones, it is important that all taxis and PHVs registered in England and Wales are recorded on the database.

Air pollution has reduced significantly since 2010, but more still needs to be done to improve the quality of the air we breathe. The most immediate air quality challenge is the nitrogen dioxide concentrations around roads. That is the only statutory air quality limit that the UK currently fails to meet. Due to the highly localised nature of this problem, local knowledge is crucial in developing solutions, but with the UK Government taking a strong national leadership role. That includes providing financial and expert technical support to local authorities in England as they develop bespoke and innovative plans to bring down levels of this pollutant as quickly as possible. The Welsh Government are taking a similar approach with two local authorities in Wales.

A clean air zone is a defined area where targeted action is taken to improve air quality. Charge-based access restrictions may apply. The July 2017 UK plan for tackling roadside nitrogen dioxide identified that, at the national level, clean air zones that charged all vehicles that did not meet the required emissions standard were the measure that would achieve compliance with statutory nitrogen dioxide levels in the shortest possible time. The plan requires English local authorities with exceedances to explore whether they can find quicker alternatives.

The Clean Air Zone Framework, published in May 2017, sets out the minimum requirements for a clean air zone and the expected approach to be taken by local authorities when implementing and operating these zones. Where charging is necessary it should be structured so that vehicles that have a relatively larger impact on nitrogen dioxide levels, on a per-vehicle basis, should be targeted first so that the overall impact on individuals and businesses is reduced. Taxis and private hire vehicles are high-frequency users and thus have a disproportionate impact on air quality on a per-vehicle basis. A number of local authorities have already consulted on proposals for their local solutions and for some this includes the introduction of a charging clean air zone. Leeds City Council and Birmingham City Council will start to operate clean air zones from early next year.

Local authorities are required to carry out specific local consultation on their plans to introduce a charging scheme. In addition, meetings have been held with representatives of the taxi and PHV sector, and a licensing authority working group has been set up to provide support and guidance as we continue to develop the database.

An impact assessment has not been prepared for this instrument as the creation and maintenance of the database will not have a significant impact on businesses. A regulatory triage assessment has been prepared to assess the impacts on licensing authorities. The database will be designed and hosted in a way that complements existing processes wherever possible to minimise the burden on licensing authorities. Licensing authorities will be funded for this additional work in line with the new burdens principle.

The Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments considered the instrument and cleared it without comment in its report of 23 January. Counsel to the committee identified a drafting error so we relaid the instrument on 31 January to add a commencement date. No other changes were made. The Explanatory Memorandum was also relaid but no changes were made. I beg to move.

My Lords, I think the principle of the regulations that the Minister has moved will be entirely uncontroversial to the House. Giving local authorities more powers to regulate air quality and the causes of poor air quality is the right thing to do. It is right that local authorities, which represent the views of their voters, should be able to act on this, providing they use sound procedural methods. I do not think any noble Lord will want to query the principle of the regulations. Poor air quality is one of the main causes of premature death in the country at large and it is right to give local authorities the power to deal with it.

I have two issues. First, the Minister’s speech was full of impenetrable jargon. It was clearly written for her by her civil servants. Will she tell us what a “regulatory triage assessment” is? I have not come across that phrase before. What is the “new burdens principle” she referred to? I was not aware of the old burdens principle, but can she tell us what the new burdens principle is?

Secondly, it would be helpful if the Minister could give us some indication of the Government’s assessment. She referred to a regulatory panel being set up in her department to deal with this, an oversight panel that will oversee the process. It would be helpful if the House had some indication of what the impact of these new clean air zones will be on taxi fleets outside London. There clearly will be opposition to it from taxi operators because they fear they will be subject to charges, particularly for older vehicles that are more polluting. It would be helpful if we had some idea of what the Government think the impact will be. I know this has been a particular issue in London. The mayor has been forthright about the need to modernise taxi fleets, and I support him in doing so. My assumption is that the taxi fleet outside London is older and might be more impacted by clean air zones, and it would be useful if we had some understanding of what the impact is likely to be.

My Lords, there will always be somebody who will be inconvenienced by changes and, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said, in this case it will be fleet drivers and fleet operators. They will often have cars that a few years ago would not have been thought out of date but will suddenly become so. A study of how we are making sure that that bit of the transport network goes on would be beneficial to the House.

This information will be updated once a week, but local government is not exactly awash with spare cash at the moment. Will the Minister indicate how the Government will support this to make sure it happens? I cannot think of a bit of local government at the moment that is not saying and displaying by its actions that it is short of resources. This database is a good thing, but if the Government do not make sure it is properly financed it will not happen well or quickly. Will the Minister give us a little more information on that?

My Lords, I welcome the Government’s proposal. I draw the Minister’s attention to the concerns raised by UNICEF, particularly about children’s health. For instance, children’s lungs, which are developing, are particularly susceptible to toxicity in the air. I suffered from pneumonia as a child, and the risks of pneumonia and asthma are raised by high air toxicity levels. These clean air zones seem very welcome.

The Minister talked about nitrogen dioxide levels, but did not mention particulate matter, which can be so fine that it can enter a mother’s respiratory tract and pass through to her developing foetus, reducing birth weight and impacting the foetus in other ways. Issues such as asthma and pneumonia can result from that. Could the Minister say whether she is also looking at particulate matter in these clean air zones?

As a vice-president of the Local Government Association, I am also concerned about further burdens on local government and what the Government are doing to help authorities get the funds necessary to be effective in reacting to this problem.

My Lords, I declare my interests as a member of Sheffield City Council and a vice-president of the Local Government Association, as in the register. I have sat on licensing committees and been the leader of a council, so I understand the process of licensing and the burden that licensing authorities experience. I reiterate the views expressed by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and my noble friend on the Front Bench. Considering that local authorities have lost £6 in every £10 of their spending ability over the last few years, the burden on them is really serious. While no one would disagree that this is a good idea that can help improve the environment, local authorities desperately need resources to enact it. Otherwise, it will be a good idea that turns into a burden and does not have the maximum impact.

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her introduction and for organising a helpful briefing with officials before this debate. I declare an interest through my involvement with the charity ClientEarth. It is a breath of fresh air to be debating an SI that is not connected to Brexit. It is a joy on the last day of term. I hope that this is the first sign that normal service is beginning to be restored.

As the Minister said, the SI is, in itself, fairly straightforward, establishing as it does a central database for licensing authorities to record details of taxis and private hire vehicles to enable enforcement of local air quality measures. We have long supported the rollout of clean air zones to tackle air pollution and therefore will not object to this SI. However, sadly, the Government have been consistently slow in addressing the growing public health crisis, which has arisen from illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide. This proposal once again seems to be a partial solution to a huge national problem. Time and again, ClientEarth has successfully won cases in the courts arising from the Government’s failure to tackle the air pollution crisis effectively. The jury is still out on whether their latest version of the clean air strategy is bold enough.

The central problem with the Government’s strategy, which we are dealing with and has been raised by a number of noble Lords in the debate, is that it places the onus on delivering clean air on cash-strapped local authorities and does not provide sufficient leadership and resources from the centre to make it happen. The result is that local authorities have been repeatedly missing deadlines for bringing air pollution into safe limits. The Government have known for some time that the quickest way to address the problem is to introduce clean air zones linked to charging for polluting vehicles, but they have been reluctant to require authorities to take these measures. As a result, some have and some have not. It is still unclear what will happen to the authorities that do not clean up their air quality in a timely manner.

I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this short debate. I am very pleased that I had the Question on air pollution earlier this week. It was a bit of a heads-up as to what might be heading in my direction going beyond the remit of the SI today—as is always the case.

Taking the questions in order, I will go first to those from the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. It is a pleasure to have him join an SI debate—and a non-Brexit one at that—and I welcome the important questions he has raised. “Regulatory triage assessment” is, yes, a very government type of term. It is similar to an impact assessment, but rather than looking at the impact outside government, it looks at the impact inside government, in this case on the licensing authorities, the amount of work they will have to do and the cost of it.

That brings me on to something else I had not heard of before today’s debate, and that is the new burdens doctrine. This is an agreement reached when funding for local authorities was set out. It ensures that pressure on council tax is kept down and that the net additional cost of new burdens placed on local authorities by central government must be assessed and fully and properly funded. In this case, we will be funding the additional burdens on the licensing authorities for the time and resources required to take the data, in whatever form it might exist in the local authority, and upload it to the central portal. Local authorities will not be out of pocket in this regard.

On funding for local authorities more generally, when it comes to the clean air strategy and the localism involved in encouraging local authorities to take action that befits their area, a significant amount of funding is available. There are two main pots of funding. One is a £275 million implementation fund for councils. Once they have their plan and it has been approved by government, they can bid for this money to help them implement whatever they are looking to do, whether that is a charging clean air zone, replacing or retrofitting buses, providing charging points for cars or any of the other things they can do. The second is the £220 million clean air fund that is available for local individuals and businesses that may be impacted by their local authority’s strategy for clean air. That covers the local authorities’ perspective.

The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, also mentioned the licensing authority working group. There are two working groups that exist at the moment. In one, we are consulting and talking to taxi and PHV operators. In the second, we are working with a group of licensing authorities to make sure that this IT system works and to hear their concerns during its implementation.