Crawley MP Henry Smith has reiterated his support for a cut in Air Passenger Duty. Henry, whose constituency is home to Gatwick Airport, hosted A Fair Tax on Flying, a leading campaign group on this issue, in Parliament on 20th January, and wrote an article on the PoliticsHome website which was published on 8th February.
 
Henry said;
 
“While I welcomed the abolition of APD for under 12s, and the upcoming scrapping of the levy for under 16s from March 2016, there is still more to do.
 
“With the exception of Chad, the air tax paid by UK passengers is the highest in the world.”
 
The Scottish Government has pledged to cut APD by 50 per cent (with a view to subsequently abolishing it altogether) from 2018 to boost tourism and business travel in Scotland.
 
A Fair Tax on Flying joined Henry in calling for any reduction of APD in Scotland to be met with reductions elsewhere in the UK to ensure a lower, fairer APD for the whole country.
 
Henry continued;
 
“Thanks to further UK fiscal devolution now Scotland is set to join the majority of countries with more competitive rates of APD than the rest of the UK.
 
“If not to be abolished, APD should be a lower, fairer and consistent tax nationwide, not a postcode lottery.”