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<p>One of the key commitments in our Clean Air Strategy was to bring forward new legislation
on air quality, and the Environment Bill – the first Environment Bill in over 20 years
- is a key part of delivering this.</p><p> </p><p>The air quality chapter in the Bill
makes a clear commitment to set a new target for fine particulate matter, the pollutant
of most harm to health, alongside at least one further long-term air quality target.
It also ensures that local authorities have a clear framework and simple to use powers
for tackling air pollution in their areas, and it addresses a crucial regulation gap
by providing government with new powers to enforce environmental standards for vehicles
and non-road mobile machinery.</p><p>Alongside this, we recently passed legislation
to phase out the sale of the most polluting fuels, helping to tackle a major source
of fine particulate matter emissions in the UK. We have also recently brought forward
the Air Quality (Legislative Functions) (Amendment) Regulations 2021, which will enable
us to keep our Pollutant Release and Transfer Register legislation up to date with
any technical, scientific or international Protocol advances.</p>
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