Sue Hayman to head up Labour’s air quality policy

Labour’s Shadow Environment Secretary Sue Hayman will continue to lead the party’s policy work on air quality, a Labour Party spokesman has confirmed.

Mrs Hayman was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs by Jeremy Corbyn in February 2017, and has stayed on in the role after the General Election last month, in which she secured 51% of the vote share in her Workington constituency.

Labour’s Shadow Environment Secretary Sue Hayman

She has been joined within Labour’s Shadow Defra team following a post election reshuffle by David Drew, the MP for Stroud, who will serve as Shadow Farming & Rural Affairs Minister and Holly Lynch, the MP for Halifax, who will be Labour’s Shadow Minister for Flooding and Coastal Communities.

Both new appointments were announced this week.

A relative newcomer to Parliament Mrs Hayman was first appointed to office in 2015, having worked in social services and then as a campaigns manager for the former Labour MP for Worcester, Michael Foster.

Clean Air Act

Since joining Labour’s front bench in the environment role, Mrs Hayman has been a vocal critic of the government’s strategy on air quality, and described the latest draft of the government’s air quality plan as ‘watered down’ and ‘ineffective’.

She has also committed that a Labour Government would legislate for a new clean air Act within 30 days of coming into power.

In a post on the LabourList website on National Clean Air Day last month, she wrote: “A Labour government would legislate for a new clean air act setting out how to tackle the air pollution that damages the lives of millions while this Conservative administration continues to shamefully shirk its legal responsibilities and put the health of millions at risk.”