‘Air pollution may have killed my father – the Tories just don’t care’

In 2009, my 54-year-old father suddenly died. Of course, our family was devastated. For decades, he worked long hours driving a cab through the smoggy streets of Birmingham to feed me and my siblings. Since his death, I’ve learned that those earning a living driving long hours are three times more likely to be impacted by air pollution.

I wonder every day what dirty air did to my father. I feel as though doing what he felt he had to do to take care of his family ended up killing him. I’ll never know for certain exactly what effect air pollution had on his health, but there’s no doubt that it will have been adverse and that he died decades too young.

The Tories talk a good game on air pollution but their record is shocking

So that’s what started me thinking, and caring, about the air that we breathe. Years later, I was the cabinet member for transport who introduced the Birmingham clean air zone (CAZ). At the time, I was criticised by the Tories, but there was a 7% average improvement of air quality within the first six months of our launch in June 2021. And since then, we have seen compliance of cars entering the CAZ rise to nearly 94%, meaning none of those cars are impacted by the CAZ charge.

The political point that’s been lost in the recent furore, though, is how hard the Tory government made it for the Labour council to implement this Tory policy – and continues to do. They talk a good game when it comes to tackling air pollution, but their record is shocking.

It took the threat of legal action from a group of international environmental lawyers for the Tory government to put together an air quality action plan which largely passed the buck down to councils, mainly Labour councils, through ministerial directions to introduce clean air zones.

But there was no weight at all behind their ‘direction’. It seemed like they told us where we had to get to then tried to stop us getting there. The ministerial direction landed at Birmingham City Council in December 2017, yet in June 2019, we had to delay implementation due to government delays in delivering digital systems required to make the zones operational and enforceable.

Our proposal to government for funding for a scrappage scheme for private vehicle owners, prioritising those that live in the CAZ, was turned down. This would have offered a choice of cash payment to contribute to compliant vehicle purchase or mobility credit in return for scrapping an old polluting vehicle.

The government directed us to deliver legally compliant levels of air quality in the shortest possible time but didn’t allocate the right level of resources needed to get it done in real life.

While the ministerial direction left us with no choice other than to introduce a CAZ, Tory ministers failed to publicly commit their support to the CAZ and the Tory West Midlands mayor and opposition Tory councillors constantly attacked it.

The poorest in our society are the most exposed

The reality is that air pollution is a profound social injustice as well as a public health emergency. The poorest are most impacted by air pollution with white working class communities and Black and ethnic minority communities most exposed to illegal and unsafe levels of air pollution.

Here in Birmingham, a recent report by the University of Birmingham on the health impacts of air pollution states that air pollution impacts up to 802 early deaths each year, equivalent to 7,900 lost years of life with 900 new asthma cases amongst children and adults per year.

The highest proportion of disease cases and early deaths attributable to air pollution are distributed within 40 neighbourhoods clustered around the city centre. These neighbourhoods are where some of the poorest in our city live and amongst the most deprived neighbourhoods in the country. While the poorest in society are least likely to own a car, they are most exposed to pollution from vehicles driving through their neighbourhoods.

When you think of it like this, it’s no surprise that the Tories don’t care. The health outcomes of the least well-off citizens of big cities barely register on their list of priorities.

The best way to tackle this crisis is to kick the Tories out of office

Really tackling this issue needs a strong legislative framework through the Clean Air Act committed to by Keir Starmer, backed with resources to help communities make the required transition. We need a government that will adopt the World Health Organisation (WHO) targets for air quality and give this public health emergency the priority it needs.

At the heart of tackling air pollution is investing in public transport – clean public transport – and ensuring we have a London-style public transport system across our country.

We need a government investing into electric and hydrogen buses up and down the country and increasing bus routes, not reducing bus services across our country. We need investment into our rail networks that not only will transition journeys from private cars into mass transit systems but will help level up our communities. 

And importantly, we need to ensure that our efforts to ensure the human right of clean air is a reality for all and does not discriminate any sections of society, particularly those who have competing priorities tackling the Tory-created cost-of-living crisis.

In other words, a Labour government led by Keir Starmer, a central London MP and resident who is serious about clean air. In the meantime, we should all remember that the number one enemy of clean air in this country for the last decade has been the Conservative government. The best thing we can do to tackle the crisis is kick them out of office.