The British Air Transport Association (BATA) has hit out at Labour plans to introduce a new charge on visitors from countries that are not required to obtain a visa to enter the UK.
Under the proposals announced by Labour shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper, nationals in countries enjoying a “visa waiver” system of fast-track permission to enter the UK will be charged around £10 per visit.
BATA’s CEO Nathan Stower said it had “significant” concerns about this proposal.
“Visitors from countries like the USA and Australia already pay the highest air passenger tax in the world to fly to the UK – £71 from next April – contributing billions of pounds to the Treasury,” said Stower.
“Adding yet another charge will make the UK more uncompetitive in attracting tourists, businesses and inbound investment.
“It is not clear how this proposed charge would be collected. The vast majority of visitors from those countries that are not required to obtain a visa to enter the UK, such as the USA, do not currently provide information to UK authorities ahead of their visit.
“Furthermore, if more money were to be raised from airline passengers alone, it would only fair for this to fund improvements in the border at airports and not at other ports of entry such as Calais,” Stower added.
Labour said the charge will help fund the recruitment of an extra 1,000 UK border guards.
That is a similar sum as the US charges for its equivalent service and Labour said tourism experts did not anticipate it would have any impact on the numbers choosing to travel to Britain.
As many as 5.5m travellers a year will be subject to the new fee – more than two in five of those from America, with Australians and Canadians the next largest groups.