Air Passenger Duty

Lord Monks Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Monks]

My Lords, I rise to add my voice to the concerns that have already been expressed by other noble Lords in this debate. In doing so, I declare an interest as president of the British Airline Pilots Association. There can be very little doubt that the APD is an important revenue raiser for the Chancellor and substituting it would be an extremely difficult task. However, the rapid increases that have taken place in recent years make the UK stick out like a sore thumb, in the European airspace in particular, but rather more widely even than that. At present levels, it is unfair and regressive. It is one-tenth of the French level, and the Dutch have abolished this kind of duty at Schiphol, which is perhaps the major competitor to Heathrow. As other noble Lords have said, to fly to Australia via Amsterdam, which is a very viable option for much of provincial Britain, could mean a saving of about £85 in tourist class and more in the premium classes.

Given the other pressures that British aviation is under—particularly the shortage of capacity at Heathrow, as confirmed again by the recent snow, which demonstrates that the airport is always operating at the margin—we are adding further, self-inflicted damage to ourselves with this tax and we risk losing ground against major competitors. Airlines are being disadvantaged, and workers and employees of those airlines are also at risk. I understand that the Flybe redundancies that were announced just last week are being put down to the level of this duty and its effect on the business, which has one or two more marginal routes than perhaps some of the bigger airlines. I also understand that AirAsia recently abandoned the Kuala Lumpur to Gatwick route, citing the level of air passenger duty, as well it might. With those figures, it is difficult to be sceptical.

Civil aviation is a big British success story and we need big British success stories in the UK. Hobbling the industry in the way that this tax does is very unfortunate, and I strongly support the calls that are being made by noble Lords for a review of the tax. I do not think it has a major environmental impact, for reasons already expressed, and the anomalies make it a very difficult tax to defend, except as a valuable source of revenue. Justice demands that this tax is reviewed and that we find other sources of revenue, perhaps from all those whom the Prime Minister accused of aggressive tax avoidance, last week in Davos.