Aviation, Travel and Tourism Industries

Scott Benton Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)]

The UK’s vaccine roll-out has been remarkable. Unfortunately, other countries have not kept pace with us and fully opening up our borders to international travel would put our brilliant progress into jeopardy. Tightly controlled travel corridors are a necessary solution, but they clearly present significant challenges to the airline and travel industries. Although international travel is limited, regional airports provide an opportunity to increase connectivity and help us bounce back stronger as we emerge from the pandemic.

Our extremely high level of air passenger duty is a barrier to expanding domestic flights, as we charge one of the highest levels of APD in Europe. Somewhat astonishingly, as air passenger duty is a departure tax, it is currently applied to the inbound and outbound journeys of a domestic return flight. That double taxation has enormous impacts on small regional airports, such as Blackpool airport, and makes many potential routes financially unviable. It also acts as a disincentive to travelling from regional airports to major UK hub airports. An airline running just one domestic connection with an average of 100 return passengers would need to make about £1 million a year just to cover the duty.

Despite huge support from residents across Blackpool, the airport lacks commercial passenger flights. Scrapping aviation tax for domestic air travel would help level the playing field and give a real opportunity to get Blackpool flying once again. Some capital investment will also be necessary to accommodate commercial passenger flights, including a replacement terminal building, as the previous one was ripped out and sold off by the Labour-run council. Hence, I was disappointed that airport infrastructure was not within the scope of the recent levelling-up fund. Reopening Blackpool airport for commercial passenger flights would increase tourism, help to create more high-skilled, well-paid jobs and bring greater investment opportunities. We know that there is pent-up demand for holidays and that people want to spend quality time with their family and friends. Blackpool is the UK’s premier holiday tourist destination, and domestic tourism will bring a welcome boost to our local economy.

The Treasury support to keep businesses viable until the resort could reopen again has been phenomenal. Over £97 million has been given to Blackpool businesses, and it is great to see so many of them reopen once again over the last few months. However, on my recent visits to hotels and tourist attractions, they have made it clear that two points need to be put across to the Treasury to make sure that we can bounce back strongly. The first is the VAT reduction continuing beyond the current extension already outlined, and the second is the requirement for social distancing to be reduced from 2 metres on 21 June.