Meeting of the Parliament 08 May 2019
Derek Mackay knows that the whole point of devolution is that this Parliament should make the right decisions for Scotland, and he has made the wrong decision today.
It is, at best, naive and, at worst, disingenuous to single out any one industry in such a specific and uninformed way, with the cabinet secretary having done no consultation, no analysis and no economic forecasting.
What galls people the most is the sheer hypocrisy from the SNP. It thinks that it is right for people in the Highlands and Islands to be exempt from the tax, that it is right to back Heathrow expansion and that it is right to send rockets to space from our peninsula. However, in one simple act of ill-thought-through policy reversal, the SNP has shown itself for what it really is: no friend of business and no friend of Scotland’s tourism industry.
Today, we could have had a sensible, informed and balanced debate about the future of aviation and the future of our economy. Instead, the First Minister has turned the issue into a polarised game of political brinkmanship. The only losers of that game will be Scottish businesses, Scottish jobs and hard-working Scottish families. This is a sad U-turn that the Government will live to regret.
I move amendment S5M-17190.4, to leave out from “calls” to end and insert:
“notes the benefits of a competitive Air Departure Tax (ADT) regime; recognises that a reduction in this taxation for long-haul flights is essential for the retention and development of new intercontinental routes and economic ties across the world with a view to boost trade, tourism and inward investment into Scotland; understands that the devolution of ADT is a critical economic lever to achieve this, and calls on the Scottish Government to honour the commitment made in the manifesto it stood on in 2016 and introduce a reduction in Scotland’s current ADT regime.”
15:31Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.