S4M-04874 Air Passenger Duty

The Presiding Officer (Tricia Marwick): The next item of business is a debate on motion S4M-04874, in the name of Keith Brown, on air passenger duty. Members who wish to speak in the debate should press their request-to-speak buttons now. I call on Fergus Ewing to speak to and move the motion. Mr Ewing, you have 14 minutes. I remind all members that time is extremely tight. I allowed an extra five minutes for topical questions, which impinges on the time for this debate.

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15:55

Stewart Stevenson (Banffshire and Buchan Coast) (SNP):
It is just over a year since Northern Ireland gained devolved control over aspects of air passenger duty so that it is no longer subject to Westminster’s hikes.

Incidentally, the example that was given by Hanzala Malik illustrates perfectly one of the irrationalities of the current scheme. Flights to Lahore are in band B of APD, but flights to India are in band C. Perhaps Lahore could become a hub because, provided that people stop for 24 hours in Lahore, they do not have to pay APD on their flight to India. That is just one of the many irrationalities that exist in the current scheme.

Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh airports have described APD as a “significant barrier” and an “increasing burden” and they would welcome its devolution. The then Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure and Capital Investment, Alex Neil, stated:

“APD was a contributory factor in the demise of Glasgow Prestwick’s link with Stansted Airport.”

We are definitely suffering indeed.

Lower air passenger duties can correlate with benefit to the environment, because direct flights not only give us more efficient travel, less hassle and increased tourism but reduce the environmental impact. Given that the environment has featured in this debate, let me talk about some of the positive things that full devolution of APD powers could do for us.

First, we could reduce APD for flights that are towed out from the terminal to the departure point. That would require some capital investment, but it would reduce fuel for short-haul flights by between 5 and 10 per cent.

Let us see reduced APD for turboprop flights. For anyone who thinks that a bit irrational, I should say that the shortest scheduled service between Scotland and London happens to be a turboprop flight—on short flights, there is no time disadvantage. That saves between 25 and 40 per cent fuel and, because the turboprops fly at a lower level, the radiative forcing is reduced.

Patrick Harvie: Will the member take an intervention?

Stewart Stevenson: I really will not have time.

Let us reduce APD for flights that burn low sulphur kerosene. At the moment, the marine and aviation industries are the only ones to use fuels that are still 3 per cent sulphur, whereas the fuel for our cars is now down to 0.5 per cent sulphur. That would reduce SO2 emissions and have significant environmental impacts.

We heard a little bit about biofuels. If we move to a position in which we are able to use hydrogen fuel, which can be produced 100 per cent from renewable energy, that would more or less eliminate the CO2 emissions from aviation in the longer term. Would it not be good, through APD, to be able to encourage aviation operators to start to move in that direction via biofuels?

We could use some of the receipts from APD to invest in longer runways. Longer runways mean that the plane needs less power for take-off and landing, which are the very significant parts of a flight. One reason why Aberdeen’s figures have gone up is that the runway has been extended by around 100m. For example, the Azerbaijan Airlines flight from Aberdeen to Baku, which could previously take only 40 passengers, can now fill the plane because the runway has been lengthened.

Let us look at the environmental advantages that would arise if, instead of transporting people from Edinburgh to Manchester airport, the railway line transported people from Manchester to Edinburgh airport because Edinburgh had a competitive advantage from lower APD. If there was more choice at Edinburgh airport, people would travel more directly, and that would be helpful.

If we had the full powers of an independent country, we could look at aircraft routing. We are congested in central Scotland. We have a one-way system for Edinburgh and Glasgow airports, which means that aircraft on their way out have to travel west across towards Prestwick and then down to Dean Cross in the lake district. We could consider that.

Let us think about allowing single-engine instrument flights, as the whole of Scandinavia does and which reduces emissions. Let us look at whether we could have precision global positioning system approaches, which reduce the approach time and flying time.

There are so many things that we could do with APD and with the normal powers of an independent country.

16:00