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5 November 2025
Main image: Families led by Mums for Lungs outside the High Court during Dieselgate trial. Photo credit: Ron Fassbender
The budget for local councils to tackle air pollution in their area has been cut 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 show 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.
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.
The Royal College of Physicians recently estimated that air pollution is costing our 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 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.
‘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.’
JEMIMA HARTSHORN
Founder and director of Mums for Lungs
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, Germany’s 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.
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.
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.’
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.
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.
‘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.’
DR ELIZABETH WAN
Resident doctor in North London
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.
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.
‘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.’
AFZAL KHAN
Labour MP, Manchester Rusholme
Birmingham received the second-highest amount of funding and has significantly reduced NO2 pollution with its Clean Air Zone, but the West Midlands Urban Area is one of five in England that are still not compliant with legal air pollution levels.
According to official government statistics, 10.9 million people live in areas of the UK which still exceed the legal levels of NO2: the West Midlands, Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region, Bristol City Region and Coventry/Bedworth.
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.
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.
‘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 KATIE KNIGHT
Paediatric Emergency Medicine Consultant
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.
The charity also wants to see a clear timeline to phase out existing diesel vehicles, and car manufacturers to fund the recall of cars failing emissions testing. Large, high-polluting SUVs should be restricted, especially in major towns and cities.
School Streets should be introduced across the country to protect children from toxic pollution at the school gate, and domestic wood burning should be phased out for those who do not need to burn fuel.
Mums for Lungs has written to Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds, calling for them to restore the funding and ensure air pollution levels are brought to safer levels.
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