UK Parliament / Open data

Finance Bill

Proceeding contribution from Greg Hands (Conservative) in the House of Commons on Wednesday, 8 July 2009. It occurred during Debate on bills on Finance Bill.
The hon. Lady makes a very fair point. That is why many of those routes are called VFR routes, standing for "visiting friends and relatives". They are important for that reason. Of course, tourism is very important to the Caribbean and somewhat important to India, but we should not lose sight of the fact that for many people in our communities in this country, those are important routes for family or personal reasons as well. Many will ask whether the increases—rates are being as much as doubled in some cases—are really an environmental tax, or whether they are simply a stealth tax with the most tangential link to emissions. Let us examine for a moment some of the peculiarities of the Government's new four-band regime. The existing two bands—Europe and all other countries—at least make some kind of sense and possess simplicity. The new bandings have no justification at all, as they are based on the distance of a country's capital city from London. The world is divided into four bands, of capital cities up to 2,000 miles away, up to 4,000 miles away, up to 6,000 miles away and beyond 6,000 miles away. Some 20 years after the fall of the Berlin wall, the Government's division of the world into four zones reminds me somewhat of the arbitrary nature of the division of Berlin into four zones in 1945. That made sense at the time to someone taking a short-term view and poring over a map, but clearly only somebody with no idea about the geography and no familiarity with the facts on the ground, or indeed in the air, would not realise that the new bands will throw up a whole host of new problems. Some countries and regions are big losers for no clear environmental reasons. We should remind ourselves that this is supposed to be an environmental tax. Because the US capital is on the east coast and within 4,000 miles of London, all flights to the US, including to the west coast, or even Hawaii or Alaska if there were direct flights there, are assessed as being in band 2. Meanwhile, as has previously been mentioned, the Caribbean is in band 3 and flights there will be subject to 25 per cent. more tax than those to the USA from November 2010. Flights to India will be taxed at 25 per cent. more than flights to Pakistan. Indeed, Bangladesh would be better off still being part of Pakistan, as APD would 25 per cent. lower.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
495 c996 
Session
2008-09
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Legislation
Finance Bill 2008-09
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