Meeting of the Parliament 03 June 2014
What we can see from European airlines is clearly a large percentage increase from £240 million to £300 million and then to £1.67 billion in 2014. The industry is clearly still expanding and is highly profitable, and it enjoys massive tax breaks. That is my starting point, and I find it hard to take a different view.
What would be a fair contribution through taxation for the industry? For me, it must be related to the social and environmental impacts of the industry on noise and traffic on the ground, as well as the impacts of carbon dioxide, which are higher, given levels of emissions at altitude. In its briefing to members, ABTA says:
“ABTA accepts that aviation should pay its proper environmental cost”
but it quite laughably goes on to say that it
“believes that cost is more than reflected in the current APD levels. This is particularly true with the introduction of the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)”,
which only covers 25 per cent of aviation emissions in Europe.
This is an industry that makes a far lower contribution through tax than other transport modes, and which has a far higher impact on climate change because of its emissions. Keith Brown’s argument that short-haul flights are more environmentally damaging is exactly the spurious rationale that was given for the air route development fund, which saw continual increases in long-haul as well as short-haul flights.
The assumption that underlies the industry’s argument and the Government’s position is that aviation can just keep growing while the rest of society aims for dramatic carbon dioxide cuts. I do not think that the industry can be given a free ride for much longer.
I move, as an amendment to motion S4M-10185 in the name of Keith Brown, to leave out from first “notes” to end, and insert:
“considers that the aviation industry does not pay its fair share of tax; notes that European airlines expect to make profits of over £1.5 billion in 2014 but will pay no tax at all on aviation fuel and benefit from significant VAT reductions in the UK; considers that the cost of air passenger duty is a small fraction of these tax breaks enjoyed by the industry, and believes that the aviation industry is a highly profitable industry that is failing to pay for the pollution that it creates and should be taxed in line with its environmental impact.”
Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.
- S4M-10185 Air Passenger Duty Motion