The European Commission has threatened to take the UK to the European Court of Justice over air quality breaches.

The UK could end up paying as much as £300m in fines.

The government received a second and "final" warning from the commission after the levels of dangerous airborne particles, or PM10s, in London and Gibraltar exceeded EU limits.

The commission says high levels of PM10 may lead to serious health problems.

"Air pollution is bad for our health. It reduces human life expectancy by more than eight months on average and by more than two years in the most polluted cities and regions," said the EU’s environment commissioner Janez Potocnik.

Surprise reaction

The UK government said the warning was "a surprise".

"It’s disappointing that the commission has felt it necessary to issue a second and final written warning," said a spokesperson for the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

"As the commission is currently assessing the UK’s request for additional time to meet the limit value in London, and has nine months to do so, it is difficult to see what further action the commission expects the UK to take."

"We remain confident that the evidence presented should satisfy the Commission. Furthermore, the Mayor of London has committed to applying targeted measures at priority locations if necessary."

The UK received its first warning in early 2009. It then tried to get a time extension for meeting the EU standards, but the request was denied.

The Commission judged that London did not have any real plans for cleaning up the air and would not be able to reduce pollution by the time the exemption period expired in 2011.

But a spokesperson for the Mayor of London commented: "’The government made a submission to the European Commission last year seeking additional time to meet limit values.

"Since then the Mayor has published an air quality strategy and the government has re-submitted additional information to the Commission.

"We are therefore confident that these developments will address the concerns that triggered this legal action. London is well on track to meet and exceed these values by 2011."

The additional data was submitted by the government in May.

It has not yet received a reply – but a "final" warning instead.

Health problems

Small enough to be inhaled, PM10s are emitted mainly by cars, factories and domestic heating systems.

Breathing in too much of these pollutants may lead to asthma, cardiovascular problems, lung cancer and premature death, said the commission.

Liberal Democrat London Assembly environment spokesperson Mike Tuffrey called the warning "a real wake up call to both central Government and the Mayor of London".

Murad Qureshi, the Labour Party’s environment spokesman, said he did not believe London Mayor Boris Johnson was doing enough to tackle the problem.

"It’s no great surprise that London is singled out as the bad boy when our mayor won’t take the bold, brave action necessary to improve the air we breathe," he said.

According to the charity Environmental Protection UK, some 35,000 people die from particle pollution in the country every year – and as many as 4,300 in London alone.

"Whilst [the previous UK government] has been waiting, the health of thousands of people has suffered," said Philip Mulligan, the charity’s CEO.

"We can only hope that the new government takes real action to improve the air we breathe rather than continuing to try to duck out of our commitments."

Other activists say that Mr Johnson must stop "relying on the government to act".

"By making London a safer place to walk and cycle and improving public transport, the Mayor could get people out of cars and ensure cleaner air for everyone who lives, works in or visits the capital," said Friends of the Earth’s London campaigner Jenny Bates.

The European Commission today issued the UK with a final written warning for breaching legal standards for dangerous airborne particles, or PM10s. Greater London and Gibraltar were singled out as areas where air quality is still a danger to health. The Mayor of London recently claimed that almost 5,000 people could be dying prematurely because of the city’s poor air (1).

Labour’s environment spokesman on the London Assembly, Murad Qureshi, said: "The Mayor has rightly highlighted the deadly problem in London but rather than tackling it, his policies have actually made matters worse. He is halving the size of the congestion charge zone, has put back plans to charge polluters for driving into London and has whacked up public transport fares, pushing people back into their cars.

"It’s no great surprise that London is singled out as the bad boy when our Mayor won’t take the bold, brave action necessary to improve the air we breathe."

The UK has failed to comply with EU air quality standards for PM10s. These dangerous airborne particles are partly caused by traffic and can cause asthma, cardiovascular problems, lung cancer and premature death. In some parts of London one in five children suffers with asthma. The UK has one of the highest childhood asthma rates in the world.

·         Boris Johnson is currently consulting on plans to scrap the Western Extension of the Congestion Charge (WEZ)

·         TfL predict losing between £55m and £70m of revenue and a 15% increase in traffic if the WEZ is scrapped (2)

·         The WEZ led to a decrease in motor vehicles entering the zone of 14% TfL estimated that around 30% of those previously entering the zone by car chose to walk, cycle or travel by public transport instead. There was a 12% increase in the number of people entering the zone by bicycle (3)

·         Last year, the Mayor suspended the next phase of London’s Low Emission Zone. The third phase was due to come into force this October and would have meant the most polluting vans and minibuses would be charged £100 a day to drive into Greater London.

The European Commission said in a press release today:

"The UK submitted an exemption request for eight zones including the Greater London Urban Area. However, the Commission did not consider the exemption justified, as seven out of the eight zones already complied with the limit values. For the Greater London Urban Area, the Commission considered that the UK had not shown that compliance with the daily PM10 limit value would be achieved by the time the exemption period expired in 2011. The UK has recently sent a further exemption request for Greater London, which is still under assessment. However, given that zones still exceed the PM10 limit values, the Commission is sending the UK a final warning. If the UK fails to take the necessary measures to comply with the legislation, the Commission could refer the case to the European Court of Justice."

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/10/687&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

Ends

Notes

1. Mayor’s Air Quality Strategy http://www.london.gov.uk/who-runs-london/mayor/publications/environment/mayors-draft-air-quality-strategy

2. Mayoral answer to the London Assembly (15 October 2008) http://mqt.london.gov.uk/mqt/public/question.do?id=23419

3. Central London Congestion Charging: Impacts Monitoring, Sixth Annual Report, Transport for London, July 2008.

4. European Commission press release http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/10/687&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

Murad said:  “We’ve learned that as part of the new government shake-up the management of the Royal Parks will transfer from the Department of Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) to Boris Johnson.  What hasn’t been made clear is whether the necessary funding to maintain the parks will also be passed to the Mayor.”

Currently the DCMS provides over £19m a year to maintain the eight Royal Parks.  Only this week the Chancellor told DCMS they would have to cut their budget by £61 million, so if they can pander to the Mayor’s thirst for power by giving him the Royal Parks, without handing him the budget, they can find a third of their cuts in one fell swoop.  Nice one DCMS, but potentially an own goal to Boris.

Murad said: “The Royal Parks in London are a wonderful national asset and have always been maintained to a very high standard – as any one of their 37 million visitors each year would testify – but the reason they look so good is that they have until now been allocated sufficient budget to maintain them well.  If the Mayor takes on the job without the funds to do it properly then something will have to give – either the parks will suffer, or Londoners will have to pay out a lot more to keep them properly, or we could easily get a bit of both – Londoners will get higher bills and the parks will be maintained to a lower standard.”

Murad added: “As the Royal Parks department also looks after the gardens of numbers 10, 11 and 12 Downing Street, this move also makes Boris Johnson gardener in chief to David Cameron, a role he will no doubt relish.”

Ends.

Notes

Murad Qureshi is a Londonwide Labour Assembly Member and is the Assembly’s Labour Group Environment spokesperson.

Last week l went to one of my local tube stations, Edgware Rd on the Circle /District/ City & Hammersmith lines  to see the arm-pit of the sub-surface lines that go through the station, with its pre-war signal box dating back to 1928 ( see above photo ) !

Now that it’s all going to be brought in-house, it made me wonder what has been done on the oldest part of the tube system in London between Paddington and Farringdon under the PPP contracts.  It is quite extraordinary that the oldest part of the tube system – to the best of my recollection – has yet to see any works like station refurbishment, track renewal or signal replacements under the PPP or otherwise, and if the sight of the pre-war signal box at Edgware Road station is anything to go by, it could do with some urgent works.  No wonder we have such delays at this important junction in the tube system, with knock on effects on the rest of the system.

This week I was able to bring up the Circle line and the signal box at Edgware Road at the London Assembly’s Transport Committee meeting on Wednesday with Mike Brown, the new Managing Director of London Underground.  He was happy for it to be raised, though he didn’t acknowledge the problems the service has had since being extended to Hammersmith.  He has already said that once the PPP comes completely in-house at the end of June he wants to look at the possibility of doing works during weekdays, dropping the boundaries between work done under the different PPP contracts and re-ordering the work sequences between the different lines.  Let’s hope he looks at the oldest section of the tube system again, in light of the state of technology along it.

Last night we held a reception for the Bangladesh cricket team in the City of Westminster at Council House on Marylebone Road, the Monday before the 5 day test match against England at Lords starting on this coming Thursday the 27th of May. This reception was well attended by youngest in the local Bangladeshi community, who were meeting their star cricketers for the first time. The reception occurred on the same day that the new Prime Minister, David Cameron gave the England team a reception at Downing Street.

Below you will see a photo of Karen Buck MP, the local member of parliament for Lords cricket ground welcoming the Bangladesh cricket team to Westminster.  The High Commissioner of Bangladesh, Dr Sayeedur Rahman Khan is on my right side and he also greeted the team.

The event was organised by the Bangladesh High Commission, in conjunction with councillors at the City of Westminster Council, in particular Cllr Barrie Taylor.

Greetings from Karen Buck MP to Bangladesh cricket team

Fulham fans heartbroken at seeing their team lose the Europa League Final suffered more misery when their flights home were delayed by hours.

After watching the west London side lose 2-1 to Atlético Madrid in extra time, the football supporters faced a race against the clock to get to work today after being stranded overnight in Hamburg where the match was held.

The influx of 25,000 passengers left the airport unable to cope, with complaints of insufficient staff. However the airport blamed the delays on drunk fans who had lost their boarding cards.

London Assembly member Murad Qureshi’s Alitalia flight took off at 5.30am as he raced to get back to City Hall for its annual meeting.

Mr Qureshi said: “Everything was fine until we got through security. It seemed there was no one in charge, even the flight crews couldn’t get on the planes.

“There were problems getting people to the planes, then no steps for passengers to board the aircraft, and none of the staff seemed to know what was happening.” Airlines including easyJet, Jet2 and bmi were meant to leave from midnight bound for Gatwick, Luton and other destinations.

But the final Fulham fans departed at 9am local time. Dawn Dunlop told the BBC: “They decided to bus us out to the plane — 300 people were taken out, but there were only 150 seats. The whole thing has been a complete disaster.” Madrid supporters also had to endure long waits for flights home.

Dozens of extra flights to and from the UK and Spain were laid on for last night’s showpiece final. But logistical problems in the host city were compounded by the volcanic ash cloud and an earlier closed runway. Spokeswoman for Hamburg airport Stefanie Harder said: “We are a normal-sized international airport with about 200 departures and arrivals per day — yesterday we had double that amount. We prepared for the situation but it’s not possible to get 25,000 people on planes at once.”

Earlier in the evening, Hugh Grant and Lily Allen had been among the Fulham followers to watch manager Roy Hodgson’s team just miss out on the trophy.

The lib-Con coalition is a public school boy political fix, so lets stop pretending its been done for the good of the country.

The Tory swing was only 2 per cent in London on average across all parliamentary seats and is some places much less then that. In Westminster North, it was only a 1/2 per cent swing. This after the Tory PPC, Joanne Cash campaign is reckoned to have spent some £ 400,000, with Karen Buck winning the seat with around about  2,000 majority. Spending £400,000 for a 1/2 per cent swing does not seem much value for money to me, and a similiar story can also be told in Hammersmith where Andy Slaughter won by almost 3, 500 votes.

The higher turn out through out London helped Labour gain control of 17 local authorites and squezzed the Greens in lewisham & Camden; Respect in Tower Hamlets; crush the BNP in Barking & Dagenham and the Liberal Democrats in places like Southwark and Islington.

The next schedule elections in London are the GLA ones, both Mayoral and London Assembly in May 2012, and unless we have a general election called earlier, I can safely say, the Liberal Democrats vote will be squezzed very hard. As my family lawyer said to me, l didn’t vote Liberal Democrat to let the Tories into power.

I am old enough to remember the grim feeling I had on the way to school when Paddington in the new seat of Westminster North fell to the Tories in 1979. Arthur Latham narrowly lost to John Wheeler, who joined a Thatcher government which, through its new-right ideology, would spend the next 18 years privatising industries, starving public services and presiding over record unemployment.

Wheeler’s winning margin was almost the same as the number votes cast for the Workers Revlolutionary Party (WRP) – showing how, in very tight elections, small parties can determine the outcome at constituency level and, in this case, unwittingly contribute to huge political change.

Today in Westminster North the contest is between our incumbent Labour MP – the hardworking and dedicated grassroots community champion, Karen Buck, and Tory Joanne Cash, wife of Cameron’s millionaire Eton chum Octavius Black.

But just as it was 1979, I have a deep sense of foreboding about what the Conservatives have planned for the country should they win on 6^th May. 

The “nasty” party’s presentation skills have definitely improved. But while the language is softer, the substance of what has all the echoes of the Thatcherite era.

George Osborne relishing the prospect of massive cuts to public services. Chris Grayling’s anti-gay bigotry showing just how far we could regress on equality issues. David Cameron’s gaffe on China when he expressed sentiments not dissimilar to those that Thatcher had against the Hong Kong Chinese. And the out of touch “born to rule” attitude of old Etonians like Boris and Cameron is there for all to see.

While they try to hide it by fielding figures such as Eric Pickles and William Hague to the media, the Tory front bench is packed full of privately-educated, amazingly privileged individuals.

Far from being the party of change, Cameron’s Conservatives actually represent a return to the worst Thatcherite excesses of the 1980s. Labour’s national campaign needs to emphasise this: we have been here before. 

From the presidential, X-factor-like national campaign to the local, smaller parties could again have a disproportionate effect on the outcome in Westminster North where it’s sure to be close. 

The Greens will take votes from Labour on the left. UKIP similarly from the Tory right. But judging by Labour’s success in a recent local by-election local issues could play in the party’s favour.

We achieved an 11 per cent swing thanks to a campaign emphasising what the party was doing locally. And with council elections on the same day as the general election, local issues could again be decisive.

So while the media and chattering classes talk of coalitions and hung parliaments, locally I’ll be out there reminding Labour supporters of the importance of getting out to vote.

I remember how it felt waking up to Thatcher in 1979 and I’ll be doing everything I can to ensure the cloud that was overhead on my walk to school that day doesn’t show up on my way to City Hall on May 7^th.

Published in Tribune on the 30th of April 2010.

I feel it can usefully be added to morris dancing around the May pole here in the UK, particularly in London. It can usefully add to our celebration of cultures around the world, particularly in highlighting the way different parts of the world celebrate St George’s day.