Air Passenger Duty: Regional Airports
Debate between Henry Smith and Julian Knight(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Julian Knight
Greater connectivity throughout the United Kingdom—in all the regions and devolved Administrations—would enhance not only tourism, but business and trade. I will come on to those points shortly.
Powers over APD are being considered for Wales, and that might have a knock-on effect for English airports such as Bristol and Liverpool. More seriously for my local airport, Birmingham, the new Manchester devolution deal might see that city gain the power to cut APD for its own airport, which could lure scheduled and package-holiday flights away from Birmingham. Clearly, if we are not to be placed at a disadvantage by rival areas, we need Birmingham airport to be able to compete fairly. However, I do not want my speech or this debate to be exercises in grievances or fiscal wishful thinking.
Despite the best efforts of this Government, we face a difficult fiscal environment. While we are still trying to clamber back from the recession and endemic overspending by Labour, any suggestions should at least be revenue neutral for the medium term.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. In his few months in Parliament he has become a worthy campaigner on behalf of Solihull and the west midlands. Might the answer to the question of APD be a UK-wide reduction or abolition of the tax, the highest such charged in the world, apart from in Chad? A recent PricewaterhouseCoopers report suggested that the amount of economic growth that Birmingham and other places, such as London and the south-east, would generate from the abolition of the tax is greater than the amount brought into the Exchequer.