Plot to go soft on car fumes: Despite fears that exhaust gases are linked to a child asthma epidemic, ministers intend to ease control on emissions

MINISTERS are proposing to ease controls over the worst element in British car pollution just as concern is growing about its link with the rising epidemic of child asthma, revealed in last week's Independent on Sunday.

Britain has drawn up a secret agreement with France to scrap or water down the European Community directive which at present is the only control on UK emissions of nitrogen dioxide (NO2 ), the car exhaust gas that the Government's own experts refer to as 'the pollutant of greatest concern'. Also, the Government has left NO2 off the list of car pollutants for which it is proposing to set air-quality standards of its own.

Some doctors are convinced that NO2exacerbates the rapidly growing asthma epidemic, which now affects one British child in every seven. The Independent on Sunday's report last week on the scale of the illness produced a strong response from readers, many of whom have children suffering and feel helpless in the face of a lack of official concern.

The EC's nitrogen dioxide directive, which sets limits on the amounts of the gas that can be emitted, is, however, embarrassing ministers. Brussels has begun legal proceedings against Britain for breaking it by not setting up enough monitoring stations, and will decide in December whether to bring the UK before the European court.

The Anglo-French agreement to slacken the directive's force is revealed in a confidential memorandum, which the Independent on Sunday has obtained in both English and French, setting out a hit-list of EC legislation that both governments insist should be 'examined with a view to repealing, withdrawing or amending'.

A spokesman for the Department of the Environment admitted that the list existed but said that what was being suggested was 'a review' of the directive; it would not mean 'a drop in standards'.

However, a Friends of the Earth air-pollution campaigner, Fiona Weir, said: 'They are clearly trying to water it down. Their policy is clearly, if you have a pollutant you can't cope with, you might as well give up all attempts at trying. It is disgraceful that the Government is not tackling the NO2 problem.'

Although it is the environment department's own advisers - the Quality of Urban Air Review Group - who label NO2 the pollutant of greatest concern, the Government is giving it the lowest priority in its plans to deal with car fumes in cities. It is the only major car pollutant for which the Government is not yet proposing to set an air-quality standard. Other harmful compounds such as sulphur dioxide, low-level ozone, carbon monoxide and benzine will all have standards set this year or in 1994.

'Britain is in the grip of an asthma crisis,' said Labour's Environment spokesman, Chris Smith. 'Around seven million working days a year are lost because of asthma. The cost is estimated at pounds 350m in lost productivity, pounds 60m in sickness benefit and pounds 400m to the NHS. Yet the Government refuses to act to curb pollution.'

Scores of readers have written in response to our report to describe their own and their children's experience of asthma and their belief that car pollution is playing a key role in the illness. 'I firmly believe that the exhaust fumes that belched into our house in Gloucester Road were a prime reason for Thomas developing asthma,' writes Fiona Pitchford of Farnham, Surrey.

Sarah Fulford-Brown of Lytham in Lancashire, who moved from central London because her three children are all asthmatic, writes: 'We are desperate for further information.'

Correspondents want the Government to put more emphasis on public transport and less on the private car. We print two typical letters below.

(Photograph omitted)