Air Passenger Duty

Viscount Montgomery of Alamein Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Montgomery of Alamein]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Gibson, and I agree entirely with what she said. I thank my noble friend Lord Palmer for introducing this subject very fully and for making such a very cogent speech on it. I am afraid that I am going to join the chorus of opposition to this tax that has been revealed so far in this debate.

As has been pointed out by the noble Lords, Lord Morris and Lord Foulkes, most Caribbean islands live off tourism and earn foreign exchange by so doing. In fact, for some, it is their only foreign exchange earner. As things stand at the moment, it is cheaper to fly to Paris, Frankfurt or Amsterdam and change planes, thus avoiding the high tax in the UK. That has the effect of increasing emissions, which is contrary to EU directives on this subject, and causing further distress all round.

I suggest not only that this is an inefficient tax but that the best way to proceed would be to abolish it altogether, because, as has been said, it does not produce a great deal of revenue and causes a lot of irritation and hard work for the airlines. I therefore propose that the tax be abolished altogether.