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Tax holiday flights more, say MPs
Committee thinks industry has been given favourable treatment by ministers
Plans being drawn up by MPs could lead to an extra tax being imposed on holiday flights. The Commons Environmental Audit Committee is recommending that the cost of air travel should increase by as much as GBP40 per ticket, in an effort to persuade carriers to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases their aircraft emit.
According to The Guardian, the committee has criticised government ministers for showing an “overt bias” towards the aviation industry, while accusing the Transport Secretary of distorting and overstating the economic benefits of flying while “playing down” the environmental damage caused by air travel.
The newspaper quotes the committee chairman, Peter Ainsworth, thus: “We need air fares that reflect the true cost of pollution. If the Government’s figures are correct, by the middle of the century aviation will account for 90 per cent of all of our carbon emissions.”
Keith Jowett, of the Airport Operators’ Association, told the newspaper he though such a proposal would price less well-off people out of the market: “It will be a brave MP who tells their constituents they will no longer be able to take their hard-earned holidays abroad or travel to see distant friends and relatives, let alone tell the businesses located in their constituencies that air links on which they depend will no longer be affordable.”
The Department of Transport will now consider the report.
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