The Government has ring-fenced £880 million to help local authorities tackle NO₂ exceedances through the development and implementation of local air quality plans and through funding to support those impacted most by these plans.

Local authorities introducing a Clean Air Zone as part of a local air quality plan can bid for Clean Air Fund funding. The Clean Air Fund can support a range of measures such as vehicle upgrade grants to individuals and businesses along with bus retrofit schemes, improvements to bus fleets, installation of electric chargepoints, provision of park and ride services, concessionary travel schemes and freight consolidation centres.

The conditions imposed on the construction of the Chiltern Tunnel are within the relevant consents that have been issued by the Environment Agency. The consent for the construction of the tunnel (HS2/P10191) will be deposited in the Library of the House. The related consents for water discharge (EPR-QB3092NR) and waste treatment (FB3709KP) at the Chilterns Tunnel South Portal are held on the public register.

A copy of the correspondence between the Department and the European Commission has been deposited and has been available to Members since 17 February.

It is wholly unacceptable that the European Commission has changed its position regarding the export of live bivalve molluscs from Class B waters. There is no scientific or technical justification for this, and it is already impacting businesses on both sides of the channel. We are publishing a series of correspondence between Defra and the European Commission, which clearly reinforces our position.

The Secretary of State has written to Commissioner Kyriakides. We continue to seek urgent resolution with the European Commission, and we have offered to provide reasonable additional reassurances to demonstrate shellfish health, on the understanding that the Commission must recognise the existing high standards and history of UK-EU trade.

As part of the current Greening Government Commitment targets, the Government as a whole has reduced the number of domestic flights its staff took by 28% in 2018/19 compared with the baseline of 2009/10. This shows good progress towards the target reduction of 30%, which the Government is on course to exceed by the target date of 2020. As part of this commitment, many departments have revisited their travel service arrangements to reduce domestic flights and have introduced initiatives to increase electronic operations. However, we acknowledge that there is still more to be done.

The Government is currently developing an ambitious, updated set of Greening Government Commitment targets for 2021-2025, with travel as an area in which we are looking to improve. We are committed to setting new targets that will be consistent with a trajectory to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and will continue to look at further measures to encourage lower emissions travel options for Government officials.

The Government has no current plans to declare a National Environment Day. There are already a number of established initiatives that encourage care for the environment, including World Environment Day. Defra is working with Keep Britain Tidy to deliver the “Keep it, Bin it” campaign. We are also pleased to support their “Great British Spring Clean” campaign, which has now been rescheduled for the autumn.

The Government made a commitment through the 25 Year Environment Plan to be the first generation to leave the environment in a better state than we found it. 2019 was designated the Year of Green Action in support of the 25 Year Environment Plan goal to connect people with the environment to improve health and well-being.