– 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by on 2015-12-02.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon on 2 November (HL3216), whether that answer takes into account that EH40/2005 Workplace Exposure Limits states that workplace exposure limits (WELs) are British exposure limits and are set in order to help to protect the health of workers and apply only to people at work, and that the final report of the Cranfield cabin air study of 2011 stated that WELs are appropriate for the protection of the health of a working adult exposed in a workplace and are not applicable to other groups such as children or elderly persons or to other environments that are not workplaces”; and if not

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

The previous answer (HL3216) took account of the relevant national and international guidelines and the relevance of various chemicals to human health. For example, two of the substances measured (tolulene and carbon monoxide) are the subject of a European standard for safety, health and comfort limits (BS EN 4618:2009). In addition to this, for the substances that do not have a European standard, other limits and guidelines have been considered in assessing the significance of any health risk of exposure to the concentrations measured in cabin air. Several of the substances monitored during the research, for example TBP, TOCP and tetrachloroethylene, have workplace exposure limits (WEL). For substances that do not have a WEL, a number of guidelines were used that have been recommended by the World Health Organisation as well as different groups in the UK and EU. These groups include Kotzias et al, Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) and the Committee on the Medical Effect of Air Pollutants (COMEAP).