LONDON, 17 September 2026 — The cross-party network of local leaders behind the Breathing Life report has welcomed Minister Hardy's promise to start work on the next national Air Quality Strategy this year, after she told MPs that England's clean air system stops asking questions once an area meets its legal limits.

Giving evidence to the Environmental Audit Committee on Monday, Emma Hardy MP said the strategy, which the government must produce by 2028, would begin with a call for evidence this year rather than waiting for that deadline. Under the current system, she said, once a local area reaches compliance "it is like, 'Box ticked—done.'" She wanted the strategy to ask instead: "How about continuous improvement, then? Okay, so you've met it, but what more could be done? What could we do next?"

UK100 made the same point in July following its flagship Breathing Life conference at the Royal Society of Medicine. When Southampton became the latest council area to have its nitrogen dioxide directions revoked, the network warned that legal compliance was being treated as a finish line rather than a floor, and that no national plan existed for what comes next.

UK100’s research, launched by the Minister at the conference, found that local action accelerating regions, cities and towns towards compliance prevented almost 14,000 deaths and avoided around £15 billion in damage to health and the economy between 2019 and 2025.

Eight areas, no plan for what follows

Since June 2025 the government has revoked eight air quality directions, covering Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull, the Blackwater Valley authorities of Rushmoor, Surrey Heath, Hampshire and Surrey, Derby, South Gloucestershire, Wolverhampton and, most recently, Southampton, after each area achieved and maintained the legal limit for nitrogen dioxide. The revocation letters confirm compliance,  but they say nothing about what comes next. It’s right to celebrate what has been achieved, but the local authorities that did the hard work are now left with no national framework, no dedicated funding and no defined role.

The Committee asked the same question three ways

Monday's session put ministers from three departments in front of the Committee. Public Health Minister Dame Diana Johnson MP highlighted the new Devolution Act duty on mayoral and strategic authorities to consider the health of their populations.

Barry Gardiner MP asked ministers for "a national framework that each mayor and community could look at and say, 'If we go down that route, we know what support we will get from Government to do this'". The Transport Minister, Simon Lightwood MP, undertook to write to the Committee in reply.

Echoing the questions asked by UK100 members, Martin Rhodes MP asked ministers "what resources are going in for them to deliver on those responsibilities".

Not all departments were represented at the session, with the chair, Toby Perkins MP, making it clear that committee members were "very disappointed" that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, which oversees local authorities, owns the Local Outcomes Framework (which includes air pollution targets), and holds the pen on devolution, had not sent a minister.

What UK100 is asking for

With a new devolution white paper due alongside the Budget on 28 October, UK100 is asking the government to keep clean air among the outcomes new strategic authorities are measured against, to write it into their integrated settlements with transitional capability funding so the new health duty can be delivered, and to set out a national framework for what local government does once air quality compliance is reached.

"The Minister has highlighted exactly the gap our members have been warning about, and we welcome her honesty," said Christopher Hammond, Chief Executive of UK100. "Compliance was never the finish line for the councils and mayors who have worked so hard so their communities can breathe more easily, and it should not be the finish line for the government either.”

"Starting the new clean air strategy now rather than in 2028 is the right call. Our asks of Minister Hardy and Defra are: (1) work with local leaders who have met their limits on what comes next, (2) put capability funding behind the health duty Parliament gave strategic authorities in April, and (3) work across departments to ensure clean air is protected in the framework mayors are measured against when the new devolution white paper lands. Local leaders have shown they can tackle dirty air. The new strategy should make it easier for them to keep going, not leave them to work it out alone."

"We brought in Bath’s Clean Air Zone in 2021 following a ministerial direction. We have seen great results, with nitrogen dioxide concentrations in the urban area being cut by more than 40% both within and outside the zone," said Cllr Sarah Warren, Deputy leader of Bath and North East Somerset Council. “Cabinet recently adopted a new, whole district Clean Air Strategy, which surveyed the evidence on the impacts of pollution on health and concluded that there is no safe level. We are therefore ambitious to go further and faster in understanding and improving air quality for our residents."

UK100's Clean Air Network, which brings combined, strategic and local authorities, including Bath and North East Somerset, together has written to Minister Hardy to offer to work with Defra to help answer the critical post-compliance question.

ENDS

‍

More information: Liam Ward, UK100, liam.ward@uk100.org

Notes to editors

About the evidence session

Environmental Audit Committee, Air Pollution in England inquiry, oral evidence HC 21, Monday 14 September 2026.

Panel one: Dame Diana Johnson MP, Minister of State for Public Health, and Professor Sir Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer.

Panel two: Emma Hardy MP, Minister of State, Defra, and Simon Lightwood MP, Minister for Buses and Local Transport.

References: Emma Hardy on starting the strategy this year, Q222; on compliance, Q224, answering Julia Buckley MP; Dame Diana Johnson on the Devolution Act duty, Q199; Martin Rhodes MP on resources, Q201; the Chair on MHCLG, Q223; Barry Gardiner MP on a national framework, Q261.

Transcripts: https://committees.parliament.uk/work/9561/air-pollution-in-england/publications/.

UK100's Clean Air Network gave oral evidence to the inquiry on 20 May 2026 following a written submission on 27 March 2026.

Written questions

On 15 September Afzal Khan MP tabled six written questions to Defra following the session (UINs 29949 to 29954), including on what steps the department is taking "to ensure that improvements in air quality are maintained by local authorities which have achieved compliance and had statutory air quality directions lifted" (29954). Answers are due by 12 October.

About the revocations

Defra publishes revocation letters here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/air-quality-plan-for-nitrogen-dioxide-no2-in-uk-2017-air-quality-directions.

Revocation letters were published for Dudley and Sandwell (27 June 2025), the Blackwater Valley and Solihull (4 September 2025), Derby, South Gloucestershire and Wolverhampton (26 June 2026) and Southampton (28 July 2026; letter dated 20 July). Leeds's direction was revoked in March 2021. Bath and North East Somerset has been confirmed by government as below the annual legal limit for nitrogen dioxide for a second calendar year; its Clean Air Zone continues to operate.

About Breathing Life

Breathing Life: A Decade of Local Air Quality Ambition was launched on 13 July 2026 at the Royal Society of Medicine by Emma Hardy MP. It is the first study to isolate and quantify the value of cleaner air attributable to local authority action. The estimate of 13,722 lives saved is derived using the COMEAP mortality methodology used by the UK government in air quality policy appraisal, applied to the reduction in population-weighted PM2.5 concentrations in England between 2019 and 2025, and attributing around 35 per cent of that improvement to local authority action. The figure represents "an effect on mortality equivalent to" that number of deaths. The £15 billion figure uses Defra's damage cost methodology. All monetary figures are in 2025 prices.

Report: https://www.uk100.org/knowledge-hub/breathing-life-uk100s-new-report-on-reshaping-regional-clean-air-leadership

About UK100

UK100 is the only network of ambitious local, regional and strategic authorities led by all political parties working together to tackle climate change. We help local leaders overcome challenges and turn innovation into solutions that work everywhere. We build the case for the powers needed to make change happen. From cities to villages, we help communities across the UK create thriving places powered by clean energy, with fresh air to breathe, warm homes to live in, and a healthy natural environment. UK100.org

‍