Finance Bill

The hon. Lady makes precisely my point, perhaps somewhat more succinctly than I am making it. By not creating an environmental tax but instead introducing an arbitrary and discriminatory schedule, the Government are making a huge mistake. I have one final point about south Asia. Flights to Kashmir, if there were such things—it is quite possible that there could be in future, or that there could be charter flights—would leave the airline concerned having to make the intensely political decision as to whether its destination was in band 2, as part of Pakistan, or band 3, as part of India. The schedule sets out a crazy scheme. Destinations such as the Caribbean, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are some of the biggest routes for VFR passengers, many of whom have said that the Government are introducing deliberate discrimination against the Commonwealth. As has been mentioned, their approach has provoked uproar in the Caribbean. The Jamaican Prime Minister, Bruce Golding, whom I have mentioned, and Tourism Minister Ed Bartlett made a special visit to the UK purely about this one issue during the Committee stage, to urge against the Government's new four-zone banding scheme. They pointed out that there was no environmental or economic reason why flights to the Caribbean should be taxed 25 per cent. higher than those to Florida, or to the US or Canadian west coast. Interestingly, the new 787 Dreamliner will be able to fly directly from London to Hawaii, yet those flights, which would be some 7,200 miles, will attract 25 per cent. less APD than flights to Kingston, Jamaica, which, at 4,693 miles, are 50 per cent. shorter in distance. As I understand it, 60,000 members of the UK Caribbean diaspora have signed a petition against the Government's plans, which are an extremely unpopular measure. We debated this matter a little in the Public Bill Committee. The last but one Exchequer Secretary, the hon. Member for Wallasey (Angela Eagle), did not seem to understand what hurt and upset her comments about the Caribbean would cause. She said in response to my speech:""He mentioned Caribbean communities. We are aware of their circumstances and we are listening to their representations. Clearly, it mainly involves the anomaly of Hawaii."––[Official Report, Finance Public Bill Committee, 2 June 2009; c. 167.]" I mentioned Hawaii merely because that is the most extreme version of the anomaly, but the anomaly is not Hawaii, but the four-zone schedule covering the whole world. Anyone who has a sizeable Caribbean community in their constituency—I have one of the largest—will know that the Caribbean tourism market, even ignoring VFR flights for a moment, competes mainly with Florida. The Caribbean will now be taxed at 25 per cent. more than its US competitor. Those who visit friends and family in the Caribbean will be similarly clobbered. To return to the hon. Member for Wallasey and her shaky geography, she explained how we managed to have a position whereby Russia was divided into two zones. I asked her why we could not simply divide the US, for example, into two zones. She said:""Well, clearly the US is a slightly different issue as its main land mass is much shorter than Russia's. If one includes Honolulu, it gets slightly longer."" That is extraordinary, at implies that Honolulu is somehow on the main US land mass. She said:""If one did it on a line between Boston and Honolulu the split would be somewhere in the middle of the Ocean."––[Official Report, Finance Public Bill Committee, 2 June 2009; c. 166-167.]" I was thinking of getting out a globe, if we were allowed visual aids in Committee, to show that the halfway point between Boston and Honolulu was nowhere near any ocean, but right in the middle of the United States.