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NEWS / NOVEMBER 2009 / FLIGHT TAXES HIKED TO BAIL OUT BANKS: IT'S NOTHING TO DO WITH ENVIRONMENT, SAYS DARLING
The Daily Mail reports that Alistair Darling has made no attempt to justify the rises in Air Passenger Duty on environmental grounds. The Chancellor told journalists in the North East that the rises were need to plug holes in the nation’s finances.
We already know that voters see the steep increases in Air Passenger Duty as a stealth tax with wings and the impact the rises will have on visitor numbers to the UK. In addition, the government has already admitted the holiday tax will price 1.5m travellers out of flying.
FlyingMatters Director Michelle Di Leo told the Daily Mail that at a time when the economy needs all the help it can get, the government is imposing a tax which undermines job creation in the tourism sector, prices ordinary families out of flying and produces absolutely no environmental benefit.
Alex Brummer has also noted that Darling has exposed the lack of environmental justification for the tax.
OUR REACTION
Rt Hon Brian Wilson
commenting on
Flight taxes hiked to bail out banks: It's nothing to do with environment, says Darling
We need global solutions to the urgent threat of climate change. The inclusion of aviation in a global deal at Copenhagen in December is the most effective way forward: unilaterally imposed UK taxes will have little impact on climate change, restrict job creation and ensure that ordinary working people could no longer afford to fly.
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FlyingMatters reaction to public attitudes to air travel and the environment survey
Reacting to statistics published by the Department for Transport on attitudes to air travel and the environment, showing that the proportion of people willing to pay extra fell from 69% in 2006 to 60% in 2010 among those who do believe that air travel harms the environment and from 50% to 40% among those who have flown in the last 12 months, Brian Wilson, Chairman of FlyingMatters said: "Just as the public's appetite for paying more for flying is waning, the Government plan to push ahead with eye-watering rises in the tax on flying so that from November a family of four will pay up to £340 in tax alone. This will push flying out of the reach of many ordinary families who only fly occasionally."
