Your policies cause pollution, ministers told

MINISTERS have been told by their top scientific advisers that air pollution is harming health - and that spending cuts and the deregulation drive have hit attempts to clean it up.

An internal report on the desk of John Gummer, Secretary of State for the Environment, warns him of 'rising concern about the increased incidence of respiratory disease' and blames 'lack of resources' and 'the burden of deregulation co-ordination' for failures to tackle pollution.

The report, by the Department of the Environment's chief scientist, Dr David Fisk, places the blame firmly on cars and suggests that Britain's network of stations monitoring air pollution may be inadequate.

Friends of the Earth described the report yesterday as 'a breakthrough of unusual candour in admitting the scale of the crisis facing our children'.

One in seven British children now has asthma. It kills 2,000 people a year, is responsible for a quarter of the schooldays lost through illness nationwide, and costs the country at least pounds 750m annually. Last month, most of England suffered the world's greatest- ever outbreak of the disease.

The department's scientists now accept that air pollution by ozone and nitrogen dioxide exacerbates asthma, that cars are mainly responsible and that 'early and effective' action is needed to tackle it.

It warns ministers: 'The adequacy of the nitrogen dioxide monitoring system will need further consideration.' The Independent on Sunday revealed last autumn that Britain had fewer monitoring stations per head than any other country in the European Union.

The report makes clear that Britain will seek to weaken a tough, proposed EU directive, which it describes as 'the most important European legislation on air quality for almost a decade'. The EU wants to set legally binding air pollution limits: the Government is trying to water these down to 'targets'.

Meanwhile, London businesses agreed last week to take immediate action to combat pollution. A report by London First, which represents 180 businesses in the capital, concluded: 'London's world-class status, the health of its inhabitants and its attraction to visitors, is endangered by the visible and invisible pollutants engulfing the capital. The weight of health evidence is now sufficiently strong to require an immediate response.'

The lobby group has drawn up a code of practice, obliging businesses signing up to cut petrol consumption, restrict parking spaces and give staff incentives to take cash options rather than company cars.