26 October 2021
Hounslow Green Party are concerned about the impacts of the Air Passenger Duty changes announced in the budget. In his budget speech, Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s announced that the duty on domestic flights would be cut by 50%.
Stephen Clark, the Green Party candidate for Brentford West in next year’s local elections said “Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s budget cut to Air Passenger Duty is unfair, will encourage Heathrow expansion and risks damaging the climate change talks.“
“The Tories should be putting forward measures to reduce demand for flights from Heathrow, not increase them.”
“The aviation industry already enjoys a subsidy worth £10 billion each year in the form of tax-free aircraft fuel for both domestic and international flights, much more that the duty levied. Now the Chancellor plans to cut the duty on short domestic flights even further. The benefit will go almost entirely to affluent frequent flyers. The money should have been spent to help poorer people struggling to pay their everyday bills. It makes nonsense of the Tory’s levelling up claims.”
“Not only are the changes unfair, but the timing of the announcement on the eve of the climate change talks in Glasgow is shocking. Aviation accounts for an increasing proportion of total CO2 emissions and could wreck any attempt to achieve ‘zero carbon’. The government has no plan to address the issue of aviation and climate change. Instead, it proposes to give a subsidy to catastrophic climate change. What sort of message does that give to the world?”
