Air Passenger Duty: Regional Airports
Debate between Julian Knight and David Amess(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Julian Knight
Thank you for your chairmanship of this debate, Sir David. I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions and the Minister for his reply. I was particularly impressed, not for the first time, by the contribution of the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford). I looked wistfully out of the window when she mentioned golf on this beautiful sunny day, and I look forward to having a round in her constituency at some point. When she mentioned Prestwick airport and Elvis, I was reminded of the famous story about Elvis creating perhaps the biggest PR gaffe of the century when he was interviewed by reporters on his one and only trip to the UK. Having landed at Prestwick airport, he came out of the plane and said that it was absolutely delightful to be in England. That, obviously, did not go down very well.
The hon. Lady spoke passionately about Prestwick and the problems that it has encountered in recent years. The Scottish Government have plans to reduce APD by 50%, and I watch with real interest to see what the economic effects will be; I imagine that they will be more considerable than our Treasury takes account of. In many other hon. Members’ constituencies, there is not the same opportunity for devolution. My hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies) said that his airport was hanging by a thread and faced the potential of greater competition from Scotland post the 50% cut in APD.
Some of the most telling contributions were made by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) and the hon. Member for South Antrim (Danny Kinahan). They said that the disparity in APD rates in Northern Ireland and the Republic is creating further social and economic divides when it comes to travel, and that, frankly, they feel as though the system is broken and it is time to fix it. I believe that many hon. Members would agree with that theme.
My neighbour and right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman) spoke about the necessity of approaching transport in a joined-up fashion and the potential that HS2 will bring. The problem is that currently, we feel as though airport duty, the idea of which is effectively to price people out of planes—
Sir David Amess (in the Chair)
Order.
Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).