Over at PoliticsHome, Tim Farron has been showing up the Tories, who voted in favour of loosening controls on air pollution. Liberal Democrat MEP Catherine Bearder opposed the plans:

Yet Conservative MEPs refused to stand up for these vital measures to improve air quality, voting against key amendments to prevent them being delayed and calling for them to be watered down to “reduce administrative burdens.” It seems that for the Tories, laws that protect the environment and improve people’s quality of life are just more red tape to be slashed. They fail to see that moving towards a cleaner, greener economy isn’t just the right thing to do for the planet. It’s the best to way to secure future growth and jobs.

Even if change is made at the EU level, we still need to focus on correcting conditions in the United Kingdom. Recently, the World Health Organisation released statistics on average levels of particular matter (PMs), a measurement of pollution, in various cities across the country. Frighteningly, the report found that at least 9 British towns and cities exceeded safe levels for PMs, including Birmingham, Leeds, London, and Sheffield. In London, Mayor Boris Johnson has failed to deliver on his promises to focus on green policies, resulting in London experiencing the highest levels of NO2, a toxic gas, of any European capital city. The time for radical change in environmental policy is now, and it is imperative that we work on it for the betterment of both the UK and the EU.

The Liberal Democrats are fighting to steer the UK and the EU on the right environmental path. In coalition, Liberal Democrats have fought to make sure that the environment has stayed at the top of the agenda.

You can read the whole article here.

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