More than 33 million people across England lived in areas with illegal levels of air pollution in 2016, new analysis has revealed.
According to research by the Labour Party, more than 60% of people in the country lived in areas breaching pollution limits, with London the worst affected at 98% of the population.
In the capital alone, eight-and-a-half million people lived in such conditions, with 32 out of 33 London boroughs failing to stay within legal limits of air pollution.
Meanwhile, 82% of people who called Yorkshire home faced high levels of air pollution – around 4.4 million people – and 76% in the North West.
The East of England was least affected by the issue, with 30% of the population living in areas with illegal pollution levels, followed by the East Midlands at 40%.
Research by the Royal College of Physicians estimates 40,000 deaths a year in the UK are attributable to outdoor air pollution, with related health problems costs more than £20bn annually.
Labour’s shadow environment secretary, Sue Hayman, accused the government of “completely failing” to tackle the issue of air pollution.
“Despite losing repeatedly in the courts on this issue, they continue to dodge responsibility, leaving millions of people living in areas of illegally high levels of pollution,” she said.
“Labour has promised a new Clear Air Act – including a network of clean air zones – to get a grip on the illegal levels of pollution across the country.”
But Tory environment minister Therese Coffey accused Labour of “astonishing” hypocrisy.
“Not only are they trying to mislead and scare millions of people now, Labour deliberately encouraged the dash to diesel which has directly led to air pollution in our towns and cities,” she said.
“Worse than that, they ignored official advice that their policies would create health problems.
“We’ve made progress cleaning up the dirty air we inherited from Labour, with NO2 emissions down 27% since 2010. We’re investing £3.5 billion in cleaning up our air and we’ve been praised by the World Health Organisation for our radical Clean Air Strategy.”
Coffey added: “Labour should apologise for ignoring advice and fuelling this major public health problem. It should also be getting those Labour-led councils that are dragging their feet on improving air quality to accelerate local solutions as quickly as possible.”