Airports: Passenger Numbers

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Monday 15th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the Government do consider the effect of APD. For instance, we have devolved APD to Northern Ireland because we faced competition from Dublin, which meant that the Belfast airports were getting into difficulties with the transatlantic trade. I understand the noble and learned Baroness’s point and that of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, about families wanting to go to the Caribbean, but I should also point out that there is quite a lot of holiday traffic to the Caribbean as well.

[Lord Naseby]

How can it be right that this tax is lower if you go all the way to Los Angeles than it is to get to the Caribbean? We do not have too many families going to Los Angeles on the lower rate but we have thousands who want to go to the Caribbean.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, as I tried somewhat clumsily to explain, we have to make sure that air passenger duty is not a tax on fuel. Therefore, we cannot tax per mile because, effectively, that would be a tax on fuel and we would fall foul of the Chicago Convention. It is, I accept, a fairly crude calculation and you can get peculiar results, as my noble friend suggests.