A proposed law is being championed by a cross-party group of London MPs to establish clean air as a human right.
The bill is known as “Ella’s Law”, in memory of nine-year-old Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah who became the first person to have air pollution listed as a cause of death.
Since Brexit, the EU has pushed ahead with tighter air pollution targets than the UK. This bill would force England to follow suit, by meeting strict new World Health Organization limits by 2030.
The Clean Air (Human Rights) Bill is being reintroduced in the Commons by the former Green party co-leader and London Assembly member Sian Berry, after parliamentary time ran out during previous attempts.
Speaking in the Commons on Tuesday, Berry said British people should have “the right to grow up and grow old without stunted lungs, without preventable diseases like asthma, and without disabling and potentially lethal harm being done to our lungs, hearts and brains by preventable air pollution”.
She quoted a new report by the Royal College of Physicians, which said evidence gathered over the past decade suggested there were now “links between air pollution and almost every organ in the body and the diseases that affect them”.
Families were still losing loved ones, she argued, to dementia, cancer and heart disease made worse by pollution.
Berry, who is now the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, did however praise recent improvements in London’s air quality.
The Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez), which charges the most polluting vehicles, was introduced by London’s Labour mayor, Sir Sadiq Khan, in 2019, and expanded to include outer London in 2023.
Berry said she hoped the government would get behind the new bill.
London MPs also backing it include Labour’s Stella Creasey, Uma Kumaran, and Bell Ribeiro-Addy.
The Clean Air (Human Rights) Bill, will get its second reading in the Commons on 7 November 2025.
