A cross-party group of MPs have called for a 50 per cent cut in air passenger duty before scrapping it completely.
The Big Infrastructure Group (BIG) said Britain cannot become a global trading nation if it has the world’s highest air passenger tax.
In 2014, the then chancellor George Osborne announced an over-haul of APD. It abolished the two highest bands of tax, eliminating the highest rates for travellers visiting destinations more than 4,000 miles from Britain, such as China, India, Brazil. However, 132 countries still have cheaper air travel taxes than the UK.
Last year, the tax was devolved to the Scottish government following the referendum result, with the SNP vowing to reduce the tax from April 2018 before abolishing it entirely.
The Scottish example is what BIG want to see happen. “APD has disproportionate effects on different tickets, disadvantaging flights to the Far East and especially to developing economies, where the cost of a plane ticket from London can be well over 10 per cent tax,” the group said.
It added: “Brexit may have granted Britain the freedom to find trading partners and pursue prosperity outside the EU, but the deeply uncompetitive nature of the UK’s own Air Passenger Duty makes seeking markets beyond Europe far more expensive than it should be.”
BIG said the lack of a “proper purpose” for the tax means that it inhibits growth and “damages UK competitiveness”.