Regional Airports
Debate between Catherine McKinnell and Ian Paisley(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Catherine McKinnell
My hon. Friend makes a very important point, and I can see that the Minister is interested. He should give some consideration to the impact that that practice has on domestic passengers and regional economies.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
The hon. Lady is making an excellent point. Does she agree that this should not be about persuading Scotland not to reduce this taxation? In fact, I am delighted that Scotland has indicated that it will reduce it. This should be about all of us persuading the Chancellor to remove this pernicious, dirty, nasty little tax on passengers and on business.
Catherine McKinnell
Interestingly, the Prime Minister seemed to recognise the issue during the general election campaign. He told regional newspapers:
“We are not going to accept a situation where there’s unfair tax competition...We will do what’s necessary to make sure that England’s regional airports can succeed.”
However, there has been near total silence on this issue ever since and there is a considerable amount of understandable concern that that was simply a lot of hot air.