Flight of fancy: is air tax pledge just so much greenwash?
The claim
“We will reform the taxation of air travel by switching from a per-passenger to a per-plane duty, and will ensure that a proportion of any increased revenues over time will be used to help fund increases in the personal allowance. “
Coalition agreement, May 2010
Cathy Newman checks it out
It was there in black and white: air passenger duty would be replaced by a greener tax. The idea was that by levying the tax per plane, rather than per passenger, airlines would be discouraged from running half-empty flights. It was something that the husky-hugging David Cameron and the greener-than-thou Nick Clegg could agree on. So into the coalition agreement it went. But I understand the government has now hit a snag, and the policy is in jeopardy.
The analysis
Every time you get a flight, you pay a tax, ranging from between £12 to £170 per passenger, depending on how far you travel. The coalition wanted to change that, making the charge payable on the plane, not on the individual passenger.
However, FactCheck has learnt there’s a problem. It appears the government may be unable to do this under EU law. One Whitehall source said the Treasury was “struggling” with it.
It had been expected to feature in the budget, in a fortnight’s time. But it’s now extremely unlikely it will make it in there.
That will please air travellers, as under the Lib Dem’s manifesto proposals, passengers on short-haul flights would have paid up to 75 per cent more as part of plans to generate £5.3bn from air passenger duty.
However it will dismay green groups. A per plane levy would have encouraged airlines to fill every seat, as if their flights were half-empty, they would still pay the tax, but wouldn’t be able to recoup all the money from passengers.
Budget airlines such as EasyJet were in favour of the change, because they tend to pack passengers into their planes.
Cathy Newman’s verdict
If, as expected, the Treasury fails to find a way round this stumbling block, it would be good news for passengers, bad news for the environment. However, it would also be very bad news for the Lib Dems. They were very proud of getting this green commitment into the coalition agreement. They’ve had to make so many sacrifices by getting into bed with the Tories. If they lose this too, some in Nick Clegg’s party will no doubt be tempted to buy him a one-way ticket somewhere far away – whatever they have to pay in duty.
There are 7 comments on this post
And Nick Clegg is a Europhile, can’t he persuade the unelected commissioners.
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This is not good news for passengers, unless they travel on half empty flights. The whole point is it puts pressure on airlines to fill their planes up, so the tax is shared among more people. So budget airline passengers are likely to see a cut in tax (those planes are usually fuller).
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Nick Clegg about to go back on a promise? Surely some mistake!
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…
I always wondered why the tax is not per kg of luggage and cargo.
It’s good for people to go, see and experience people and places (socio-cultural and economic dimension of sustainable development).
The negative environmental impact of air travel could be significantly reduced if people and organisations wouldn’t fly tonnes of dead material around the world….
Don’t think this area is well enough researched to base a policy on it yet. I’d imagine you could decrease fuel consumption by at least 15% without changing the price for the end consumer …
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Well, it was a daft, poorly thought out idea anyway and would only have served to make British airlines less competitive.
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Ha ha!
The whole “The EU won’t let us” turns out to be a complete lie – three days later they are saying “The Chicago Convention of 1944 won’t let us”. Which is probably a lie as well.
Chances are, they have caved in to pressure from the larger, more expensive airlines.
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It’s just another stealth tax, appreciated by brain- donors who don’t realise that the climate has always changed(and still wear amber, without realising how it was formed).Please stop pretending that we, in Britain, can solve the “problem” by ourselves
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