Morally and legally, the UK government has failed us on air pollution | James Thornton

No less than 17 years have passed since new rules were approved in the UK to save thousands of lives by limiting deadly air pollution in our towns and cities.

Pollution is the “invisible killer” because, for the most part, it goes unseen. Its impact on human health and the planet is why those laws were necessary.

Yet disgracefully – and illegally – we are still subjected to excruciatingly dirty air. Conditions are sometimes so poor that you notice it in your nostrils or lungs. Those days, when the air feels thick with fumes, you may be under the impression that it’s just one vehicle with a bad exhaust in front of you which is to blame. It’s generally not.

London’s pollution – the worst in the UK – was visible on a trip I made to Canary Wharf a few weeks ago. From the 11th floor, a brown haze sat across the skyline, its deadly toxins testing the health of millions of city-dwellers and workers, particularly those who suffer from asthma, heart or respiratory conditions.

Pollution is right there with you when you’re puffing as you cycle through the park on a summer’s day, or when you’re chatting with friends on a visit to the shops on a Saturday morning, or when you’re taking your child to school.

Why are you and I are still inhaling unlawful levels of nitrogen dioxide nearly 20 years after it should have been cleaned up?

There is a simple answer: because the UK government is breaking its own and the EU’s laws.

It has failed to protect your health and mine, and more importantly the health of our children. It has failed legally. And it has failed morally.

ClientEarth is taking the government back to court on Tuesday, because of the lack of urgency, the failure to tackle the problem. Cleaning the air isn’t rocket science. Not doing so is simply unacceptable political behaviour.

The fact that it’s taken the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) 18 months to launch a consultation on just five clean air zones – when there are many more badly polluted towns and cities across the UK – is just one illustration of that lackadaisical attitude.

In April last year, in our first legal challenge, the supreme court ordered the environment secretary to draw up a new Air Quality plan to meet legal limits in the shortest time possible. The plan was woefully inadequate and didn’t envisage UK compliance on pollution levels until 2025. That would be 26 years since the rules were first approved.

Not only that, but while motor manufacturers have been exploiting legal loopholes and using dubious techniques to pass emissions tests, the government has failed to hold them to account – while bidding behind the scenes to allow increased emissions.

The Treasury, meanwhile, is still giving incentives through the tax system, for motorists to buy diesel cars. That is also unacceptable.

A reason some give for not taking action to solve this public health crisis is the cost to the economy and the Treasury and the impact on business, hauliers and motorists. But surely the health impacts of pollution are worth more than that?

Pollution is responsible for 40,000 premature deaths in the UK. It triggers heart attacks and strokes. It can make existing heart conditions worse. It causes cancer and stunted lung growth in children. It aggravates respiratory conditions which can be fatal.

But there is also a substantial economic and societal impact. Defra’s own analysis suggests that the cost to the economy from early deaths by air pollution is £27.5bn. Every year.

So what should the government be doing? A national network of Clean Air Zones, preventing the worst polluting vehicles from entering our towns and city centres; a scheme to retrofit buses and heavy goods vehicles to make them compliant with legal emissions limits; and a targeted diesel scrappage scheme part funded by the car industry – used to fund low emission vehicles and alternatives to car use.

Other solutions should run in tandem: a clean public transport system and a car labelling scheme so that motorists know they cars they are buying are compliant with emissions limits in the real world.

That would be a start. There is also a great opportunity: to move the economy toward zero emission vehicles. We could become a leader in sustainable energy, and sustainable cities.

The air law will be UK law under the government’s Brexit plans. It should be made even stronger in future with a new Clean Air Act.

First, we need to win this court case to make sure the government understands that pollution is a health hazard which we – or rather they – can solve.

Morally and legally, the UK government has failed us on air pollution | James Thornton

Reporting female genital mutilation should be legally essential – CPS chief

Alison Saunders, head of the CPS, appeared prior to the Property of Commons home affairs choose committee. Photograph: Felix Clay

Healthcare, educational and social-perform employees need to be necessary by law to report to the police suspected instances of female genital mutilation, the best prosecutor in England and Wales has said.

The director of public prosecutions, Alison Saunders, said there had only been eleven referrals of female genital mutilation instances by the police to the Crown Prosecution Service in the last two to three years, in spite of at least 144 complaints to police.

The most senior prosecuting officer was appearing just before the Residence of Commons property affairs choose committee soon after the very first prosecution for female gential mutilation was announced final Friday – 29 many years after it grew to become unlawful in England and Wales. The prosecution is being brought towards a London medical professional and a 2nd guy. The crime carries a optimum 14-12 months sentence.

The DPP chief said there were a quantity of loopholes in the recent legislation on FGM she wanted to see closed, but extra the lack of prosecutions had stemmed from a dearth of evidence rather than flaws in the legislation.

Saunders explained the eleven referrals in recent years had only involved five instances. At the very same time as it was announced the first prosecution would go ahead, the CPS stated they would not proceed with the other 4.

The DPP mentioned the 4 dropped FGM circumstances incorporated 1 that was new and 3 that had been reconsidered following earlier choices to take no even more action. In every single of the four cases, crown prosecutors concluded there was insufficient evidence to deliver costs.

The committee chairman, Keith Vaz, mentioned they had taken proof that as numerous as 66,000 ladies in England and Wales had been subjected to FGM. “Eleven referrals sounds a extremely small figure,” he stated.

Saunders said it was no use waiting for “the archetypal younger girl to come via the door” who was ready to give evidence towards her household. What was required was a lot more “intelligence-led investigations” and much more specialists referring situations to the police.

The DPP chief mentioned she had written to ministers final month urging them to make it necessary for healthcare and other pros to report any proof of FGM to the police.

But she declined to comment on MPs’ recommendations for the adoption of a law, comparable to 1 in France, that calls for youthful girls to undergo mandatory healthcare examinations. “I do not believe that is a matter for me,” she said. “That is a wider policy concern.”

But she did back moves advocated by the Solicitor-General, Oliver Heald, to place a duty on mother and father to safeguard their youngsters and make it unlawful to allow their daughters to be mutilated. She also backed moves to extend the jurisdiction of the present FGM law to people who are temporary visitors to Britain.

Reporting female genital mutilation should be legally essential – CPS chief

NHS legally barred from marketing patient information for commercial use

The revelation came days after controversial programs to extract patient information from GP information were put on hold, amid concerns above the scheme.

In a bid to allay public considerations Mr Hunt will this week announce a series of amendments to the Care Bill.

A source shut to Mr Hunt mentioned: “The ideas around this programme, which will deliver true positive aspects to sufferers, are fundamentally proper, and we will assistance them.

“But alongside a new campaign from NHS England to clarify the programme to the public and GPs, we also need to make certain that robust legislation is in place to deal with their worries.”

These in charge of the NHS information programme have repeatedly insisted that it will be unlawful for information extracted from GP files to be offered to insurers, who may possibly seek to target clients or put up their prices.

Even so, The Telegraph disclosed on Monday that in 2012 the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries obtained the information about 47million patients for about £2,220. It utilized the data to support “refine” essential illness cover.

In response the government will this week enshrine in law a ban on the Well being and Social Care Details Centre, the physique in charge of NHS data, from releasing the information for commercial purposes.

The new legislation will also introduce new measures deter organisations which obtain NHS information from misusing it.

Below the information safety act, businesses which “reckless disclose” individual information are committing a criminal offence can be fined up to £500,000.

Nevertheless, MPs have raised concerns that the fines are “small change” to global firms and will do small to deter wrongdoing.

Beneath the new laws, NHS information will only be launched to organisations which have abided by data safety guidelines.

Those that have committed even one particular prior offence involving patient data will be barred from accessing NHS health-related data indefinitely as part of a “one strike and you are out” technique.

Firms that wish to use personalized health care data will have to demonstrate that they are performing so on an “ethical basis” which will benefit individuals that they will not breach their privacy.

A supply close to the Department of Overall health explained: “For some organisations, the risk of no longer being able to access this type of information may possibly show a far more powerful sanction than the existing optimum £500,000 fine beneath data safety.”

Ministers will also introduce into law a legal necessity that the wishes of individuals who want to opt out of the NHS database are “respected”.

People that pick not to participate will be ready to opt out above the phone and obtain a legally-backed assurance that “no identifiable information” about them will enter the database.

The two bodies which advise the government on releasing info will also be provided a legal basis to make them a lot more accountable.

They will have to publish details about which organisations have acquired NHS information and the justification for the selection.

On Thursday Jane Ellison, the well being minister, stated that the new measures were necessary to restore “public confidence”.

She explained that the use of NHS data had assisted alert authorities to the scandal at Mid Staffordshire hospital and would aid doctors fight antibiotic resistant superbugs.

She explained: “It is clear that most folks agree with the aims, but they have justifiable considerations about how they are getting implemented.

“People want rights in excess of how their health and care data, particularly data that recognize them, are getting utilised. Safeguards will be put in location more than and above what NHS England does to create public self confidence.

“We know there is an tremendous prize in our grasp, but we know we will win that prize only if we are extremely careful and thoughtful about how to proceed, taking the public with us.”

Several of the measure ministers are adopting have been proposed by George Freeman, a Conservative MP who previously worked in the biomedical business.

Ministers are also expected to adopt numerous measures he has put forward in a personal members bill to help empower sufferers.

They include scrapping fees charged by some doctors for individuals to access their own medical information, and creating a duty for hospitals and GPs to share medical data with each and every other to make sure “joined up” patient care.

Mr Freeman explained: “Without information we wouldn’t have found Mid Staffs or Harold Shipman. While some of the objections to the NHS’s plans for use of information are ill-founded and irresponsible, there are legitimate public and GP issues which need to have to be addressed if we are to be capable to secure public support for ‘opt-out’ which is essential.

“I am delighted that the government has accepted the measures in my Bill, and our wider campaign, and agreed to adopt them in legislation”

* The head of the NHS has apologised for posting a spoof video mocking the beneath-fire well being support data-sharing task and lampooning Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

Sir David Nicholson was forced to say sorry to a senior colleague portrayed as Hitler in the newest of a prolonged historical past of world wide web parodies based on a scene from the film Downfall.

“Sorry this is what takes place when you give an outdated bloke with an over designed sense of humour new tech,” he told Tim Kelsey, national director for patients and information.

“You are undertaking a excellent occupation X”, he extra on Twitter, in which he had earlier produced a substantial stir by posting a website link to the clip – subsequently deleted from his account.

Titled “Tim Kelsey discovers that care.data is in problems”, the video has had a lot more than 3,000 hits given that it was posted to YouTube earlier this week.

In it, the subtitled words of the actor enjoying Hitler – recognized as Mr Kelsey – state that the task has “often been about generating income”.

“Who cares about ordinary folks, they never recognize issues,” it shows him saying.

“They never have my vision for a much better globe”

It attacks “scaremongering” information privacy campaigners and has him saying: “Men and women did not care when we offered off their NHS, they barely blinked”

At one particular level he is proven suggesting almost everything is Ok because “Jeremy Hunt is correct behind us”.

But he is then informed: “Jeremy Hunt is hiding behind a tree. The Government is saying practically nothing. They are all hiding behind trees.”

Responding on the social media site, Mr Kelsey mentioned: “My view on the YouTube film: funny but we chance underestimating how important data-sharing is for the NHS. Hitler was not a joke.”

NHS legally barred from marketing patient information for commercial use

Recreational marijuana offered legally for first time in Colorado

In Denver, Television cameras and journalists filled Denver’s Discreet Dispensary, as the store’s 1st consumer, Sean Azzariti, purchased a legal quantity of marijuana.

Possession, cultivation and personal individual consumption of marijuana by adults for the objective of “acquiring substantial” has currently been legal in Colorado for much more than a 12 months underneath a state constitutional amendment authorized by voters.

But as of Wednesday, cannabis was becoming legally made, offered and taxed in a related way to alcohol.

Recreational marijuana offered legally for first time in Colorado