Official Report 775KB pdf
Air Quality Standards (PE2123)
Welcome back to the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee. Our third item of business is consideration of petition PE2123, which was submitted by Asthma and Lung UK Scotland. The petition asks the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to amend the Air Quality Standards (Scotland) Regulations 2010 by setting new limits for nitrogen dioxide and fine particulate matter in order to align with the World Health Organization’s 2021 air quality guidelines.
We are dealing with the petition for the first time, but we have conducted wider work on air quality in this parliamentary session, including on the issue of alignment with the 2021 guidelines. We also touched on the issue in recent evidence sessions with SEPA and ESS.
I draw members’ attention to the meeting papers, and specifically to paper 3, which sets out some options for further scrutiny. We have the option of closing the petition if we consider it appropriate to do so. Does any member wish to express any views?
I think that we should hold an evidence session, to which we should invite the petitioner and other relevant stakeholders. We should also write to the Government and stakeholders to get written views.
I agree with Mark Ruskell on that. It is important that we get further evidence on the petition. There is a whole range of relevant stakeholders.
For transparency, I am a charity ambassador for the Asthma and Allergy Foundation, which is not directly involved in the petition but which has an interest in it. My view is that, first, we should write to the Scottish Government to get an updated position from it. Then we can make an informed decision about what our next steps should be, including on the potential for having a round table, but I would like to get the update first of all.
Before we come to an informed view on this, would the deputy convener’s suggestion preclude an oral evidence session at a later date, depending on the Scottish Government’s reply?
I think that the deputy convener’s suggestion was to find out what the Government is doing first, and then consider the best way to respond to that, for example, through having an evidence session, as Mark Ruskell and Monica Lennon suggested. All of that is slightly dependent on our work programme discussion, which comes later on in our agenda.
Douglas is looking at me as though he would like to say something.
I was going to agree with the deputy convener. It would be good to hear what the Government is doing before we go to the next steps, so I am fully supportive of his view.
I suggest that, at this stage, we write to the Scottish Government to ask what action it is taking to align the standards. Based on the evidence that we receive, we can then consider the option of holding a round table or evidence session to work out how best to proceed. Do members agree?
Members indicated agreement.
The clerks will make sure that the petitioner knows what we are doing and we will send the appropriate letter to the Scottish Government.
That concludes our business in public, so we now move into private session.
11:26 Meeting continued in private until 12:33.