FOI request detail

4,000 premature deaths

Request ID: FOI-3465-2223
Date published: 18 April 2023

You asked

Under the freedom of information act please help me to understand Lord Molyan's comments in the House of Lords on 20th March 2023. Please supply the premature deaths figures for each of the years of Lord Moylan's deputy chairmanship and each of the years since. "The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, made it abundantly clear that the Labour Party stands four-square behind the Labour mayor’s proposal to impose a ULEZ on outer London; there was not one word of criticism. She mentioned the estimate of 4,000 premature deaths in London. I do not dispute that figure, but it is difficult to know what it means: is a premature death 10 years before you would have died or a week before? These are difficult figures to interpret, but that figure I regard as reliable and I am not disputing it in any way. However, I want to point out is that when I was deputy chairman of Transport for London—a post that came to an end in 2016—and on the board, the figure was also 4,000. The measures are introduced—the local traffic neighbourhoods, the ULEZes—but the estimated figure never changes. So is it really doing any good? When the noble Baroness has to point out what good it is doing, she does not say that the figure of 4,000 is coming down. Instead, with a very clever shift, she turns to the measurement of air quality and the number of schools passed and so on—but the question is outcomes, not outputs. The question is whether it is having that health effect. The estimate is amazingly stubborn—I would just say that."

We answered

TfL Ref: FOI-3465-2223

Thank you for your request which we received on 21 March 2023, asking for premature death figures from air quality for each year Daniel Moylan was Deputy Chairman of the TfL Board.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Environmental Information Regulations (EIRs) and our information access policy. Unfortunately we don’t hold the information you require. We do not hold premature death data.

However, detailed information on the methodology behind assessing life years lost and attributable deaths can be found in the report ‘Health burden of air pollution in London’ produced by Imperial College https://www.london.gov.uk/programmes-and-strategies/environment-and-climate-change/environment-publications/health-burden-air-pollution-london.”   Burden calculations are a snapshot of the burden in one specific year.  TfL and GLA review the burden calculations periodically, particularly taking account of updated advice from COMEAP and other health expert views, and any updated burden estimates will be made available in the future.

If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable to access it for any reason, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.

Yours sincerely

Eva Hextall
FOI Case Management Team
General Counsel
Transport for London


 

Back to top

Want to make a request?

We'll email you the response within 20 working days.


We'll publish the response online without disclosing any personal information.