Government must come clean on air pollution scandal, says Mayor

Greater Manchester’s Police and Crime Commissioner Tony Lloyd

Following the Volkswagen air pollution scandal, Greater Manchester’s Mayor Tony Lloyd said:
“It is shocking that between two and three thousand people die every year because of air pollution across Greater Manchester. That is already a challenge we are having to face up to across the conurbation.

“And it is shocking to find that Volkswagen has deliberately fiddled its diesel car emission results - a scandal that will see more people die.

“But it's equally shocking that central Government stand accused not simply of failing to prevent this but acting as a willing accomplice to Volkswagen and car manufacturers who ignore health, life and death.

“Greater Manchester, like almost all British urban areas, has been in breach of EU Nitrogen Dioxide limits since 2010 and, even with the work being done at local level, it will be over a decade until we comply.

“So it's hard to explain why the Department for Transport ignored ‘significant’ evidence of fraud by car manufacturers when it received it a year ago.

“It's hard to explain why DEFRA, the Government department charged with protecting our environment, has been lobbying British Members of the European Parliament to vote against a proposal to introduce routine and non-routine testing of vehicles in ‘real world’ conditions because of the ‘administrative burden for industry and Government’.

“It's hard to explain why Prime Minister David Cameron is accused of ‘caving in’ to Germany over these car emissions. According to former Transport Minister, Norman Baker: ‘Merkel rang up and wanted a favour and idiotically he [the Prime Minister] said yes. He damaged the British car industry and damaged the environment’.

‘It's hard to explain but someone had better start because people suffering from asthma and heart conditions, and our children in schools and playing on the streets, just like the rest of us, are entitled to answers.

“I am writing to the Prime Minister asking not just what Government knew and did, but what we now know about all the cars on our roads. I'll be asking him to begin to play a constructive role in challenging fiddling manufacturers, literally, to come clean and to work with Greater Manchester to clean our air. And I'll be asking him to work at the European level to bring in testing that works and safeguards. He's got to break from the dirty past and be part of the future.

“I'll be writing to the North West's MEPs asking them to put public interest ahead of commercial interest and see where the new EU legislation can help us save lives.”