Church Condemns Aviation Tax Cut

Wednesday April 26 2017

^{Jets landing and waiting to take off at Edinburgh airport. Picture by Jonathan Winton, Creative Commons Licence}

The Church of Scotland’s climate change officer has condemned the Scottish Government’s proposal to cut Air Departure Tax.

Adrian Shaw said the proposals were inconsistent with Government commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The Government wishes to cut the tax, newly-devolved from Westminster, by 50% before eventually abolishing it entirely. The Bill’s first stage was passed by MSPs yesterday.

Mr Shaw added that the policy promotes inequality because people with high incomes fly most and will benefit most; while those living in poverty will benefit least, if at all.

And he said Scottish Parliament support for the proposals could lead to UK wide changes to air passenger duty.

“We are particularly disappointed because in other ways the Scottish Government is leading the rest of the UK in responding to climate change,” he said.

“The proposals to cut air passenger duty seem regressive by comparison.

“As a way to tackle poverty it is difficult to see how this tax cut would have any real benefits other than a possible boost in employment within the Scottish tourism industry or other sectors of the economy.

“Evidence for this comes primarily from the aviation industry which cannot be treated as impartial.

“There is also a very real risk that cheaper air fares within the UK would lead to a diversion of traffic from rail, which has much lower carbon emissions.

“This is a particular risk on busy routes such as between London and Scotland.

“As such we conclude that the proposals are likely to widen the inequality gap, as well as increase carbon emissions.”

The Bill passed yesterday approved the principle of devolving the tax to the Scottish Government, but did not include details of rates and bands.

Post Tags: aviation, climate change, devolution

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