S5M-11643 Air Quality

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Christine Grahame): The next item of business is a debate on motion S5M-11643, in the name of Graeme Dey, on behalf of the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, on “Air Quality in Scotland Inquiry”.

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Stewart Stevenson (Banffshire and Buchan Coast) (SNP):

My sole contribution to the committee’s report was to join the committee in time to get my name and photograph in it. Otherwise, my contribution to the report was entirely nil. I therefore thank all those who preceded me on the committee for the hard work that they have done. They missed a typo in paragraph 50, which has been cut and pasted into the executive summary, but let us not worry too much about that. Donald Cameron does not need to worry about his late arrival on the committee, either: I came to it much later.

As an asthmatic, I will focus on health issues for people who have problems of one sort or another with their lungs. I particularly welcome the report’s focus on diesel cars as being contributors to poor air quality. I now have a petrol car after many years of having diesel cars. I admit that my reasons for getting one were quite separate from pollution, but at least it means that I am slightly ahead of the game.

The Government’s “Cleaner Air for Scotland: The Road to a Healthier Future” strategy was published in November 2015, so the strategy is about halfway through its five-year term. As others have, I will focus on particulate matter. PM2.5 relates to particles of less than 2.5 micrometres in size. Such particles are so small that they cannot be seen using an ordinary microscope; they can be seen only using an electron microscope. Because of their small size, they have a disproportionate effect. In its report on the subject, the Government highlights that the Scottish objectives in relation to PM2.5 are similar to what is laid out in the World Health Organization guidelines, which is welcome.

However, I want to highlight where the WHO is going. Through the research that it is co-ordinating and reporting on, it is becoming more aware of the impacts of PM2.5. We are talking about tiny particles, and the smaller a particle is, the greater the ratio is between the surface area and the content—in other words, there is a lot of surface area and not much content. That means that such particles are much more likely to stick to human flesh, particularly in the lungs. So small are they that they will go right down to the bottom of the lungs, to the bronchial tubes and beyond, and they are much less likely than larger particles to be expelled. That is partly why PM2.5 particles are so important.

The WHO’s “Review of evidence on health aspects of air pollution”, which is a technical report, is a very meaty document of well over 300 pages. It brings to light a lot of interesting research that goes right the way back, including research from across Europe and North America, on the effects of PM2.5. It mentions that

“A systematic review reported significant associations between exposure to PM2.5 and birth outcomes, including low birth weight, preterm birth and small for gestational age births”—

and that is aside from any effects that are directly associated with lungs.

More recent research has been done that shows that exposure to such small particles even for a single hour has measurable effects on lung function that are associated with a higher rate of mortality and morbidity. The evidence on larger particles is less clear, but the issue is an extremely serious one that we need to be very careful about. Even healthy people are affected, and people who already have cardiac or lung issues are affected disproportionately badly.

Limited research has been done on the interaction between electrostatic charge and very small particles, and the WHO report lists eight areas in which further research is required. Rural areas are better. When my wife puts the washing out in Banffshire, it smells beautiful and there is no smut. If it has been out in West Lothian, it comes in black and smelly. Therefore, I say to members: live in the country and live longer.

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