Air Passenger Duty and Developing Economies

Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, on securing this important debate. It is about the Caribbean that I want to talk this evening, but I must say that sometimes I sit here in astonishment. The air passenger duty was increased as a result of pressure for green taxes from the very party of which the noble Baroness is a member. The Lib Dems, and the green movement in the UK, want to restrict the expansion of aviation. Indeed, they are now joined by the Conservatives, who have placed a ban on any expansion of Heathrow and Gatwick, from which most of the Caribbean flights go. We need to be honest in this debate. Air passenger duty has not arrived from nowhere; it has arisen because the aviation industry has been under a lot of pressure. We have seen this from Questions in this House. There has been an anti-aviation attitude among many Members. Frankly, the aviation industry has not got its act together to put forward a defence of its industry.

The tax on the Caribbean is unfair; there is no doubt about that. It is unfair to say that you can travel to Los Angeles, as I do to visit family, when I see the make-up of the people on the plane—predominantly business travellers; and then go to Barbados, as I do, and see predominantly people who are family members, going on holiday, visiting their family or people who have retired here returning home. For those people to pay more in air passenger duty than those on a flight to LA is crackers. How on earth could the Treasury put in band B travel to the USA at a lower payment than travel to the Caribbean, to which, I suggest, we have a moral responsibility? They are part of our Commonwealth family.

I very much welcome the debate. The closing date for responses to the consultation is 17 June and I hope that the Treasury is inundated with submissions about this dreadful tax. There is no doubt that it does affect tourism. The Caribbean is the biggest tourist snare in the world. It is a place that people visit regularly. It does not have an alternative industry. If it does not have tourism many of the jobs in the Caribbean will go. I hope that the Government will listen to what is said in the debate and put it in the context of the Caribbean. If we are looking at abolishing air passenger duty, I rather fear that what will replace it will perhaps be substantially more damaging to the aviation industry.

There is another factor. We are talking about tourism and traffic to the Caribbean. What about traffic from the Caribbean? We have seen the airports of Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam continually take passengers from the UK. That is what people will do. They will fly into those airports, avoid the tax substantially and then come into Britain. That cannot be good for our economy. We are good at aviation in the UK. We are an island and will always need it. We need to consider this important debate introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin. These wonderful islands are caught up in a tax that frankly is unfair to them. I would suggest that they are also caught up in the bigger machinations in that we have not got our act together properly on aviation in this country. I should declare that I am a member of the NATS board but I see no conflict in taking part in this debate this evening.