Discuss - Transport Air Passenger Duty - Scrap the Air Passenger Duty

Critics of Air Passenger Duty claim it is damaging tourism. Should it be scrapped?

Alliance Party "APD was identified as a significant cost burden on local business. Though introduced as an environmental tax, it has risen steeply and is no longer linked in any meaningful way to climate change. The lack of through carriers in Northern Ireland also means that passengers starting a journey in Northern Ireland will often have to pay short-haul APD on the leg to a UK hub and then a further APD on the international leg of their journey, which disadvantages the public here. Whilst I welcome the reduction and devolution of long-haul APD on direct long-haul flights, saving our one direct flight to the US, it affects about 2 per cent of passengers. Studies by Oxford Economics and PWC have indicated that revenue to Government through increased economic growth could actually increase if APD were abolished and so I renewed my call that the Government should do their own cost-benefit analysis in light of the evidence presented." Alliance Party MP Naomi Long.

Conservative Air passenger duty (APD) for children under the age of 12 on economy travel will be abolished from May 2015, Chancellor George Osborne has said in his Autumn Statement.

DUP The DUP would "Seek to reduce crippling Air Passenger Duty rates introduced by the UK Government which risk diverting business away from the Province to the Irish Republic and placing long-haul routes such as Belfast-New York under threat". Source: DUP.

Labour I would like to ask the Chancellor about the Air Passenger Duty proposal. We will support what he has proposed .... Source: Ed Balls response to Autumn statement http://press.labour.org.uk/post/104247806064/ed-balls-response-to-the-autumn-statement

Liberal Democrat The Liberal Democrats have suggested replacing air passenger duty with a per plane aviation duty. This would be charged on both passenger and freight planes and on flights to all destinations. The per plane tax would take into account emissions of nitrous oxide on take-off and landing (apparently well correlated with the per mile emissions of the plane), maximum take-off weight (MTOW) and distance travelled. The Conservatives have also proposed a reform of air passenger duty “to encourage a switch to fuller and cleaner planes”, but so far their proposal remains unspecific. Under Liberal Democrat plans, there would be a supplementary tax on domestic flights in the UK in order to encourage rail travel. The cost per mile of the tax would be higher for domestic flights travelling less than 300 miles (excluding “lifeline flights”, which we interpret to be flights to Scottish Islands, and flights between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK). They aim for these two taxes to raise £3.3 billion if implemented in 2010–11. The tax would be adjusted to meet this revenue target. To avoid aeroplanes touching down in a country close by and then taking off to a further, final destination they would charge the duty to the final destination. Source: http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/sn05094.pd

SNP Reduction in Air Passenger Duty by 50 per cent, with a view to abolishing it when public finances allow source: https://www.snp.org/sites/default/files/document/file/scotlands_future.pdf

UKIP "Once introduced, scrap Air Passenger Duty (APD)." Source: UKIP 2010 Transport Manifesto

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