The budget for local councils to tackle air pollution in their area has been cut by the Government from £225 million a year to just £1.5 million in the last five years, according to new figures obtained by Mums for Lungs. The group of parent campaigners says this means it will take far longer for areas to meet requirements to cut emissions to within World Health Organization guidelines.
Data received under the Freedom of Information Act from DEFRA shows the average grant provided to councils under eight years of a Conservative Government from 2016/17 to 2023/24 was £71.8 million. This has fallen to just £1.5 million under the Labour Government in 2024/25. This represents a 99.4% reduction in funding from a high of £225 million in 2020/21.1
The cost of Government inaction on air pollution is outstripping its annual investment in cost to our economy and NHS by billions of pounds every year, says a press release from the group. The Royal College of Physicians recently estimated that air pollution is costing the UK economy upwards of £27 billion per year in core healthcare costs and productivity losses, and it is killing up to 36,000 people every year. Scientists say they have found links between air pollution and almost every organ system in the body and the major diseases that affect them. This includes the brain, lungs (stunted lung growth), cardiovascular system, metabolism, kidneys, liver, gastrointestinal tract, bones and skin but even diabetes and worsening mental health conditions have been linked to air pollution.2
Jemima Hartshorn, founder and Director of Mums for Lungs, said: “Cutting air pollution budgets by 99% at a time when children are still breathing illegal and toxic levels of dirty air is indefensible. Parents across the country expected Labour to deliver on its promise of a Clean Air Act and a legal right to breathe safe air, but instead, commitments have been dropped and funding slashed. Failing to address air pollution and invest in solutions to clean up our air is a short-term financial fallacy and a moral failure. It is setting up another generation of children for a lifetime of ill health.”
“The human cost of air pollution is immeasurable, the financial cost to our NHS and economy is billions and our Government is investing barely anything. We urge the Government to urgently restore funding, clean up our air, and protect little lungs from the devastating effects of toxic air.”
Mums for Lungs is one of the third parties to the ‘Dieselgate’ trial, which is currently in the High Court to examine claims that car manufacturers were cheating emissions tests. The group is calling for the manufacturers to fund recalls of vehicles failing emissions testing.
In 2017 the German Government put together a fund of around €1bn to improve air quality, including €250m from car manufacturers such as Daimler, VW and BMW after the Dieselgate scandal emerged. However, no such scheme exists in the UK.3
In opposition, the Labour Party promised to introduce a legal right to clean air through a Clean Air Act but this was dropped from the party’s manifesto last year.4 A petition presented to Parliament by Labour’s Afzal Khan MP in January last year stated that “Labour’s Clean Air Act would establish a legal right for citizens to breathe clean air and abide by World Health Organization clean air guidelines; further declares that Labour’s Clean Air Act would place tough new duties on Ministers to ensure air quality guidelines are met to bring in accountability for the Government; and further declares that Labour’s Clean Air Act would grant new powers to local authorities to allow them to take urgent action on air quality.”5
However, such an act has not been introduced by Labour in Government, despite ongoing toxic levels of pollution in towns and cities across the UK. Labour has also dropped its commitment to introduce Clean Air Zones across the UK, similar to that in London. This is despite the fact that the ULEZ has reduced air pollution in London significantly since its introduction in 2019, and NO2 fell to legal levels for the first time last year.6
EU member states agreed last year to bring their air quality standards closer to World Health Organization guidelines by 2030. The revised Ambient Air Quality Directive updates air quality standards for both PM2.5 and NO2, and means the UK is now lagging significantly behind its neighbours.7
Greater Manchester received the most funding of any local area in recent years – a total of £211 million since 2016, but still has illegal levels of pollution. It was recently revealed that Greater Manchester spent over £100 million on creating a Clean Air Zone that was later scrapped by the Mayor, Andy Burnham.8
Afzal Khan, Labour MP, Manchester Rusholme said: “I cannot overstate the importance of everyone in our community being able to breathe clean air. In Manchester, we see over 1,200 people per year die prematurely from this toxic air and we have some of the highest rates of childhood asthma. This is why I have always used my voice in Parliament to rally against pollution and make clean air a human right. I will continue to do all I can to fight for this and ensure the health of our community is a priority.”
FOI figures obtained by Mums for Lungs show that in the last two years nearly 8,500 children were admitted to the specialist paediatric respiratory services at Manchester University Foundation NHS Trust or seen as outpatients.9
Alba De Toro Nozal, the mother of a seven-year-old boy, Eliot, believes his condition, which he has had since a baby, is being made worse by pollution in South Manchester. Alba said: “My seven year old boy had several admissions to hospital when he was very little. He had viral induced wheezing, he couldn’t breathe at home even with inhalers so we had to constantly go to A&E to put him on a nebuliser. In hindsight, I know this was caused by pollution in the air in our local area.”
Children are particularly vulnerable to air pollution because they breathe more rapidly and are closer to the ground, where pollutants like nitrogen dioxide and PM2.5 are more concentrated.
Dr Katie Knight, a Paediatric Emergency Medicine Consultant, said: “Every year we see thousands of children coming to London A&E departments with severe breathing difficulties. Many of these children have symptoms which are exacerbated by toxic air pollution. This is a public health emergency which the government needs to take seriously, by providing the leadership and funding to protect children from preventable sickness and long term damage to their health. Cutting the budget for essential air quality work is extremely shortsighted and a false economy, which will end up costing us all more in the long term.”
Dr Elizabeth Wan, resident doctor in North London, said: “As the mum of a child with asthma, and an NHS doctor, I find it truly shocking how air pollution is being deprioritised, both on a local and national level. We have an increasingly clear understanding of the damaging health impacts of air pollution, especially for children and vulnerable adults. There would be significant economic gains to cleaning the air, much greater than any short-term costs in implementing the necessary, and relatively simple, measures (for example helping families to walk to school, and taking polluting vehicles off the road), not to mention the very real personal benefits to the many families such as mine who have children with chest problems.”
The UK Government instructed Manchester to become compliant with air pollution laws by 2024, but instead, the Mayor of Manchester scrapped the planned Clean Air Zone in December 2023.
Birmingham received the second highest amount of funding and has significantly reduced NO2 pollution with its Clean Air Zone, however, the West Midlands Urban Area is one of five in England that are still not compliant with legal air pollution levels.10
According to official Government statistics, 10.9 million people live in areas of the UK which still exceed the legal levels of NO2 Limit Value for health (annual mean): the West Midlands, Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region, Bristol City Region and Coventry / Bedworth.11
Mums for Lungs is calling for the Labour Government to update clean air legal protections at least in line with Governments across Europe and interim WHO targets, and finally take decisive action to clean up our air and protect children’s health with adequate funding. They are calling for:
- An enforceable pathway to meet WHO air pollution targets at same speed as the EU, so children in the UK are as well protected as their European neighbours
- A clear timeline to phase out existing diesel vehicles, and car manufacturers to fund the recall of cars failing emissions testing
- A phase out of domestic wood burning for those who do not need to burn
School Streets to be introduced across the country to protect children from toxic pollution at the school gate - Restrictions on large, high-polluting SUVs, especially in major towns and cities
Mums for Lungs has written to the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves and the Environment Secretary, Emma Reynolds calling for them to restore the funding and ensure air pollution levels are brought to safer levels.
Notes
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Air Quality Grants – Local Authorities – from DEFRA FOI Data – Google Sheets (available from Mums for Lungs) – data from FOI in tables; Raw data from FOI return – Mums for Lungs – FOI Air quality funding 2025 – (Figures available from Mums for Lungs).
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https://www.rcp.ac.uk/policy-and-campaigns/policy-documents/a-breath-of-fresh-air-responding-to-the-health-challenges-of-modern-air-pollution/
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German cities to get more money in air pollution fight – POLITICO
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Labour explores plan to make clean air a human right with new legislation | Air pollution | The Guardian
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Labour’s Clean Air Act – Hansard – UK Parliament
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New evidence reveals that all Londoners are now breathing cleaner air following the first year of the expanded Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) | London City Hall and London meets legal limits for toxic NO2 pollution for the first time – almost 200 years earlier than predicted – following the Mayor’s world leading air pollution policies | London City Hall
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https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/theme-a-european-green-deal/file-revision-of-eu-ambient-air-quality-legislation
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Greater Manchester: Scrapped clean air zone costs hit more than £100m – BBC News
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Manchester — Mums for Lungs Manchester has consistently the highest annual mean level in the country and this has increased by 6% since 2021. It is the only local authority that was designated as being in exceedance of legal limits in 2021 that is continuing to see an upward trajectory. Source: https://www.manchesterfoe.org.uk/blog/2025/01/23/let-manchester-breathe-coalition-response-to-the-greater-manchester-clean-air-plan-approval/#:~:text=The%20latest%20DEFRA%20stats%20for%20Nitrogen%20Dioxide%20(NO2),and%20this%20has%20increased%20by%206%%20since%202021.
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https://www.brumbreathes.co.uk/ and https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/air-pollution-in-the-uk-2024/air-pollution-in-the-uk-2024-compliance-assessment-summary#definition-of-zones
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Air pollution in the UK 2024: compliance assessment summary – GOV.UK
