Meeting of the Parliament 25 April 2017
I appreciate that Mr Harvie will be unhappy this afternoon, as the proposals combine two things that he likes least in the world: aviation and tax cuts. It must be horrendous for poor Mr Harvie to have to consider them together in one bill this afternoon.
The Scottish Government has not had much experience of dealing with taxation and, frankly, nothing would surprise me about the Scottish Government’s approach to taxation. However, we will learn more in due course.
Let me return to what I was saying before I was interrupted. The evidence that we heard from all interested parties, particularly the airline industry, which is responsible for the collection of the tax, is that they do not want a completely different framework established for Scotland; they want the mechanisms that are currently in place to be replicated as closely as possible. In taking evidence, the committee detected no appetite for creating a wholly new tax on a different basis from the existing air passenger duty.
Indeed, the only substantial difference seems to be that the tax has been given a different name. It is being called air departure tax rather than air passenger duty. Cynics might suggest that it is simply an exercise in changing the name for the sake of it rather than a reflection of any different approach having been taken in practical terms.
In general terms, the Scottish Conservatives are supportive of the bill and will be happy to vote for the general principles at decision time tonight. However, we raised one principal concern at stage 1, and it was raised by my colleague Adam Tomkins on a number of occasions when we took evidence, as is reflected in the stage 1 report.