I welcome this debate and the motion tabled by the Backbench Business Committee and moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel).
Of all campaigns in this Parliament, I have received the highest level of communication from my Windsor constituents about the air passenger duty, and that says a lot. My constituents are wonderful people. They are incredibly articulate and eloquent, and although they are extremely good at writing letters on all sorts of subjects, I was taken aback by the level of communication on this issue.
Although we love our noisy neighbour, Heathrow, do not wish to see it close and hope that its status will be maintained, the air passenger duty lies right at the heart of the airport’s future. We will need further capacity in the south-east, but Heathrow is not fully utilised at the moment, and I wonder whether part of our failure to use it to its full capacity is due to air passenger duty.
Let me make some brief observations about APD. First, it is an odd tax in its own right; it is a tax on the free movement of people and goods in our country, the European Union and the world in general. It is a harmful tax—it harms competition and trade—and it is damaging to our reputation and connections with the rest of the world. The tax directly affects people’s behaviour. I am sure that many hon. Members have had their mouse hovering over the online basket when buying air tickets, and then suddenly realised that on occasion, the tax is higher than the price of the ticket. That bizarre anomaly lies at the heart of today’s debate.
It strikes me that there is an evidence-sized hole at the heart of this debate. The Treasury may have conducted reviews into how much revenue is raised and how much money APD brings in, but the absence of a full review leaves a huge hole and lack of information about the overall economic impact of this tax on our nation.