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Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah said she had hoped nine-year-old Ella’s death would make MPs tackle an “invisible pandemic” of filthy air. But the Government admitted last week it would miss a deadline for introducing legally binding targets for air quality, water health, nature and waste.

Rosamund said: “I thought Ella’s death, along with the hundreds of studies linking air pollution to asthma, dementia, depression, lung cancer, brain cancer and miscarriages would compel the Government to take serious action to tackle this invisible pandemic.

“This is a public health emergency.” Ella, who died in 2013 after an asthma attack, was the first person to have air pollution listed as a cause of death.

She lived near the busy South Circular Road in Lewisham, southeast London and Southwark Coroner’s Court said that pollution had “made a material contribution” to her death.

Rosamund wrote to the Prime Minister: “We have a human right to breathe clean air. Protect children around the country from suffering the way Ella did by aligning the air quality targets that will be brought forward under the Environment Act 2021 with the World Health Organisation’s air quality guidelines.”

She asked to meet the PM to discuss the emergency.

The Daily Express has highlighted the dangers of pollution in our Green Britain Needs You campaign.

Environmental groups said the targets’ delay is a major blow to efforts to restore nature and water quality. The Government had described the goals as “a cornerstone” of the Environment Act, which will “drive action to protect and enhance our natural world”.

Ruth Chambers, of the Greener UK coalition of 12 major groups including the RSPB and The Wildlife Trusts, said: “The longer we go without these targets the longer it will take to restore bird populations and improve the quality of local rivers.

“It’s hard for the Government to claim its green commitments remain intact when legal mechanisms for enhancing the environment are put on the back burner.

“Ministers need to publish a clear plan for a set of ambitious targets as soon as possible and assuage concerns around their wider agenda.”

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