Dec 2020 

Congratulations to Ella's family; the inquest has found that sadly the little girl died from an asthma attack but with air pollution making a material contribution to Ella's death. She is the first first person to have air pollution listed as a cause of death on her birth certificate. 

This a landmark ruling as it will start to ensure that collectively, we become more aware of how damaging air pollution is in all its forms here in Oxfordshire. 

I welcome all policy changes and Council campaigns that seek to improve the air quality in our County. 

In 2017

Historically, the UK has not been strong on tackling air pollution. We have previous been fined and even sued for failure to reduce our 'excessive' levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2)- mostly from traffic- and have repeatedly had warnings from the World Health Organisation that this one of the largest environmental health risks today. 

I am therefore very pleased to welcome recent steps taken by The Government to provide a diesel scrappage scheme and other incentives to assist with moves towards cleaner, healthier modes of transport. 

As a Conservative, of course I support individual choice, but I believe even more can be done to achieve a healthy environment and reduce the number of premature deaths caused by current levels of pollution in the UK. 

I am fully in support of developing a new clean air act to tackle this and I believe we should also all be working together to call on and encourage local councils to do everything they can for the health and well-being of all of us.