Dodgy diesel statistics are just an excuse for higher tax

40,000 people do not die in the UK every year as a result of air pollution

Barely a day goes by without some politician or other pontificating on the urgent need to tackle the scourge of air pollution.

Politicians of all parties rather like air pollution because where there’s smog, there’s money to be made from green taxes.

This week, it was London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s turn to threaten diesel car owners with new charges, following 35 other UK cities planning £20-a-day “toxin taxes”.

As usual, Mr Khan made the oft-repeated claim that air pollution results in “40,000 deaths a year” across the country.

This 40,000 figure is alarmingly high. It is also alarmingly wrong.

Forty thousand people do not die in the UK every year as a result of air pollution. Yet that figure, as respiratory physician Professor Tony Frew explained to me on my TalkRadio show this week, is “a zombie statistic – however many times you try to kill it, it comes back. And it’s simply not true”.

So what is the truth? What the study by the Royal Colleges of Physicians and of Paediatrics and Child Health, quoted by Mr Khan, actually says is that 40,000 “equivalent lives” are lost every year as a result of all outdoor air pollution – which is actually only a few hours or days each over a population of 65 million. And only a tiny fraction of that is down to diesel cars, or indeed, to any cars.

Even if we banished every vehicle of every kind – diesel and petrol cars, trains and buses – we would live on average just one month longer over our 80-odd years than we do now.

And to cut those 40,000 equivalent lives lost down to zero, we would need to get rid of not just every vehicle, but every fridge, cooker, heater, TV, factory, power station, all electric lights, and either turn to 100 per cent green energy or face going back to the Stone Age.

Sorry, but I’m not sure my faith in wind power overcomes my desire for chilled wine, central heating or a TV box set. And even if it did, I imagine roasting a woolly mammoth steak over a wood fire inside a yurt might pose some health issues, too.

The truth is that air pollution in the UK is going down, not up, yet our politicians happily pollute our politics with dodgy statistics. This is just an attempt to alarm us into paying higher taxes. We Brits shouldn’t scare so easily.