Reality Check: Is EU responsible for clean beaches, water and air?

  • Author, Peter Barnes
  • Role, 91热爆 Reality Check

Ed Miliband, the former Labour leader, says that the EU can take the credit for cleaner beaches, water and air.

"Membership of the EU has cleaned up our beaches, improved our water supplies and without the EU we would not even be debating the silent killer that is air pollution."

It's true that these issues are covered by EU laws, which have pushed for higher standards over time and that European rules are among the toughest in the world.

For example, the quality of water at beaches is governed by the revised Bathing Water Directive.

But outside the EU ,Britain might have implemented its own laws on environmental issues, as some other countries have done.

And it's surely going too far to say we wouldn't even be discussing air pollution without the EU.

The Clean Air Act, for example, was passed in the UK in 1956, long before we joined the European Community.

Reality check verdict: Over the top.

READ MORE: The facts behind claims in the EU debate