Tory plan for sky-high flight taxes
Published Date:
11 March 2007
WESTMINSTER EDITOR
DAVID Cameron's new Tories are preparing to make taking the plane more expensive in a bid to force more people onto regular public transport - and to help save the planet in the process.
The Conservatives will attempt to assume the mantle of environmental saviours this week with a series of 'green tax' proposals designed to present a Tory approach to tackling climate change.
The focus of the shadow chancellor's campaigning zeal will not be belching factory chimneys or gas-guzzling cars, but the average traveller taking routine flights between British airports.
George Osborne will lay out hugely controversial proposals for tackling the carbon emitted by domestic flights every year, by making it more expensive for passengers to take the plane.
The options, to be unveiled during a keynote speech on Thursday, include:
• Slapping 17.5% VAT on domestic air travel for the first time, in an attempt to force more people on to inter-city train services;
• Issuing regular travellers with personal 'green air miles' accounts. Measuring their air travel and their first few flights would be taxed at a flat rate but any journeys over a set level would be taxed at a progressively higher rate.
• Keeping airline passenger duty but levying it per flight, rather than per passenger.
• A new 'green duty' on airline fuel.
While it was welcomed by green campaigners last night, the blueprint threatens to alienate some of the Tories' most loyal supporters - starting with the business community.
The VAT proposal alone would add at least £12 to the £70 average return fare paid by passengers every day on the busy business service between Edinburgh and London.
But it would also have a severe knock-on effect on travellers who insist domestic flights represent the only practical way for them to make routine journeys between their homes and elsewhere in the country.
Residents of some of Scotland's furthest-flung island communities have benefited from the across-the-board fall in the cost of air travel in recent years, with one-way fares to Edinburgh from Wick, Kirkwall and Stornoway to Edinburgh now as low as £32.
But 'essential' air travel, including routes between the islands and the mainland, would not be protected from the Tories' new-found green zeal.
In a top-secret paper circulated among senior colleagues, Osborne admits that his proposals must apply to all domestic flights without exceptions.
"European Union law does not make any provision for distinctions between regional and inter-city flights," one senior Tory source explained last night. "This means that any VAT changes would have to be imposed on all journeys - including to the Highlands and islands, and the commuter routes which present the biggest problems in terms of carbon emissions.
"George has also pointed out that his ideas will present particular problems for the banking, finance, insurance and charity sectors."
Donald Manford, transport convener of Western Isles Council, said the "devastating" proposals would further isolate the islands after years of trying to improve links with the rest of Britain.
"Transport is the key for us, it is not an optional extra, especially when we don't have railways," said Manford, who lives on Barra. "If you make it more difficult for us to get over to the mainland or for people to come and do business here, you just make us more peripheral than we already are. People have to use domestic flights for their own personal reasons, but cheap air travel is also vital for our business and the viability of our communities."
Environmental campaigners Friends of the Earth (FoE) said the Tory proposals would be a welcome contribution to the debate about global warming, only days after the European Union agreed to fight climate change with more windmills, solar panels and efficient light bulbs.
EU leaders pledged that a fifth of the bloc's energy will come from green power by 2020, following a summit in Brussels on Friday. Tony Blair said the agreement gave Europe "a clear leadership position on this crucial issue facing the world".
FoE spokesman Martin Williams said air travel had to come under the microscope. "We have been calling for the price of air travel to more accurately reflect its cost for a long time.
"The industry already gets away with benefits like not having to pay tax on its fuels - and that's even before you consider the damage it does to the environment. Some flights are unavoidable but domestic ones are the best ones to target - if only because we have plenty of trains as an alternative."
Osborne will unveil his radical green tax proposals as "options" for "consultation" - but they will nevertheless represent the most controversial policy plan yet unveiled under Cameron and one of the most dramatic tax plans ever by a mainstream party.
The key proposal is to replace the existing airline passenger duty of between £10 and £40 with a new system of 'personal carbon allowances'.
The full article contains 826 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
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Last Updated:
11 March 2007 12:03 AM
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Source:
Scotland On Sunday
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Location:
Scotland
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Related Topics:
Climate change
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Budget airlines
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Conservative Party
