Ministers should bring forward a new clean air act that would ban wood burning, clear diesel vehicles from the roads and force councils to cut pollution, a group of more than 60 charities have urged before the king’s speech on Wednesday.
Labour held out the prospect of a clean air act while in opposition in 2023, but this was dropped from the final election manifesto, and the government has made no move to reinstate it.
Jemima Hartshorn, founder and director of the Mums for Lungs charity, one of the groups behind the letter, said: “Dirty air is the biggest environmental health risk in this country. Air pollution is costing us about £27bn a year and is linked to asthma, wheezing, cancer and dementia. The dirty air is harming us all, and it’s damaging the economy too. Yet, we know how to solve this problem.”
The call, by organisations with more than 230,000 members, came as one of the country’s leading experts on pollution and health urged ministers to ban wood burning in urban areas. Stephen Holgate, who is the special adviser to the Royal College of Physicians on air quality, told the British Medical Journal (BMJ) it was a “disgrace” that so few complaints about wood burning resulted in any enforcement action. In the year from August 2024 to August 2025, at least 15,195 complaints were made against wood burning in England, but only 24 fines were issued.
Current air regulations date back to the days when coal was the main culprit behind dirty air. “We know now that these particles [from wood burning] are at least as toxic, if not more toxic, than those coming out of coal,” said Holgate. “So, we have regulation now to stop this, but these regulations are never acted on. Yet we’ve had thousands of complaints about this issue.”
Hartshorn also called for the phaseout of wood-burning stoves, and help for people in rural areas who rely on them to move to cleaner and low-carbon heating systems, such as heat pumps.
“Unnecessary wood burning is increasing in this country,” she said, pointing to rocketing sales of wood burners to people in urban areas in recent years.
The BMJ also revealed that the Scottish government had been lobbied by the Stove Industry Association (SIA), which represents manufacturers of wood burners, before it abandoned plans to ban wood burners from new homes. The UK government was also lobbied, with eight meetings between the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and SIA representatives between October 2021 and June 2024, when the Tories were in power. Conservative ministers or Defra officials met clean air campaigners only twice over the same period.
Since Labour took office, three meetings have been held between Defra and the SIA, and 14 with clean air campaigners. The government undertook a consultation on wood burning earlier this year, but campaigners said it was toothless, as it in effect ruled out any form of ban in favour of a potential health warning on stoves.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) refused to provide details of any meetings with the stove industry, as requested by the BMJ under the Freedom of Information Act. Last month, MHCLG issued new guidance to housebuilders – called the Future Homes Standard – that would allow wood-burning stoves to be installed in new housing, despite having indicated that the rules would require low-carbon heat pumps to be installed.
Hartshorn said: “I am shocked by the lobbying and devastated on behalf of all the children, hundreds of thousands of them, who are attending hospitals, struggling to breathe and scared – because our air is making them sick.”
She added: “This government committed to raising the healthiest generation of children ever. Well, this is the test: will they cut ties with the SIA and other industry lobbying bodies and finally do right by our children and public health? [They must] end the sale of new wood stoves and phase out all non-essential wood burning.”
A spokesperson for the SIA said: “Our engagement with both the Scottish and UK governments has been conducted openly and in line with standard democratic processes followed by all sectors.
“We fully recognise the importance of protecting air quality and public health, and we support proportionate, evidence-based measures that deliver meaningful emission reductions,” the spokesperson said. “Our position consistently supports the transition to modern, Ecodesign compliant stoves, alongside the promotion of best practice in fuel use and stove operation.” The spokesperson added that a ban on wood burning would “negatively impact the UK’s manufacturing and rural economies”.
However Ecodesign stoves, though an improvement on older models, have been found to still emit air pollutants.
A government spokesperson said: “Our new rules will reduce harms from domestic burning and we will continue to monitor pollution from this source to inform any future action.”
A Scottish government spokesperson said: “As we have said previously, in amending these regulations the Scottish government listened to concerns from rural and island communities about resilience in times of bad weather or power outages, as well as the wider use of bioenergy and peat for other reasons. These changes addressed these concerns whilst retaining the spirit of the original legislation, which aims to eradicate polluting gas and oil boilers from new homes and buildings.”
