Royal Commission call into "biggest public health catastrophe" caused by emissions-rigging

The Government was under pressure to act on the emissions-rigging scandal amid claims that Volkswagen's evasion of emissions limits had contributed to thousands of early deaths in the U.K.

Volkswagen has admitted it may have fitted a device designed to reduce emissions of NOx under testing conditions to 11 million vehicles worldwide. Professor Martin Williams of King's College London told The Guardian that the estimated 5,800 premature deaths caused each year in the U.K could be reduced by a factor of at least two if cars had met legal limits.

The scandal comes as the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs consults on an air quality strategy which sees it calling on local authorities to close roads and implement other access restrictions to diesel vehicles, a move seen as heavy-handed by some. 

The Clean Air in London campaign called for a royal commission to investigate car makers' activities in the U.K, given diesel is "the biggest public health catastrophe in UK history. Even the black plague didn't affect everyone in the population". But the transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin called for an EU-wide investigation, The Telegraph reported, whilst his department stressed it was not known whether U.K cars were affected or not.