Air Passenger Duty: Regional Airports

Debate between Jonathan Edwards and Danny Kinahan

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Danny Kinahan (South Antrim) (UUP)]

I thank the hon. Member for Solihull (Julian Knight) for securing the debate. Belfast international airport is in my constituency. It employs some 4,000 people—a huge number, given the Northern Irish economy—and helps some 200 businesses nearby. It is phenomenally important, just as Belfast city airport is, which is only 20 minutes away, and Londonderry, an hour away. As we have heard, Northern Ireland needs its connections, especially by air, because everything else is slow. While other hon. Members have the benefit of rail and roads in their constituencies, if we take them it is either through Scotland and down, or through Dublin and across. It is long-distance, so the only way to do things economically and quickly is to fly. Air travel is therefore vital to us.

Figures that I was given a year ago show that 47% of passengers going to Dublin airport are from Northern Ireland. I was recently told that the figure is now 52%, so we are draining our population, who are disappearing to travel because of three things: air passenger duty, good roads in Ireland that mean people can get to the airport quickly, and the fact that they are going to a hub that takes them to the rest of the world. The other alternatives include Manchester and Birmingham. Air passenger duty, therefore, is one of the three things that we are really asking the Government to tackle and remove. The point was well made by others about the impact on the less well-off who want to travel. We are adding more than £100 to the travel costs of a family of four. That is sometimes more than the ticket itself, if they have booked early enough. We need to review this.

I am nervous hearing hon. Members talk about different levels of air passenger duty in different parts of the United Kingdom, just as I am nervous about all the matters that break up the Union. Although we want the freedom to travel, we have to be very careful, or all we will end up doing is stealing our own labour forces from one another.

[Jonathan Edwards]

On that point, does the hon. Gentleman therefore oppose the move to devolve corporation tax to Northern Ireland?

[Danny Kinahan]

No. I like the fact of corporation tax. I have just said that we have to be careful, so I am being careful on that matter. We need to find the right balances that work between us. That is why I want to see an all-party group on the Union, so that we can talk through these ideas.

Tourism in Northern Ireland is run by Tourism Ireland, which runs it all from an all-Ireland basis, focusing only on tourism in Northern Ireland. So if Ireland decides as part of its rail policy to put in a direct line from Dublin to its airport, making it easier to get there, that is not part of the tourism policy that we have a say in, and it further damages our economic chances. I am told that, as a result of the block grant in Northern Ireland, if we lost air passenger duty and had to pay for it there would be a staggering cost of £55 million. I would love to know the details behind that. Yet I am also told that Belfast international airport thinks that if we got rid of air passenger duty, it could bring in 5,000 jobs and some £5 million. That should open up the whole economy to working better, which is what we want to see.

I want to mention one rather dour side of this: our way out of the troubles in Northern Ireland in the past was a thriving economy, with people travelling the world and seeing how other things work. We want everyone to travel. We want them to come home and to bring back ideas. Air passenger duty is severely damaging us, and we therefore want to see it removed. Even if it is removed in stages, can we at least start to look at that? We want to see Northern Ireland open for business, just as we want to see the United Kingdom open for business.