Caribbean scales up attack on APD
The APD debate has been taken to the House of Lords as the Caribbean threatens to drop ‘diplomacy’ in favour of other tactics to challenge the tax.
TV presenter Floella Benjamin – now a Liberal Democrat peer – urged the Government to change the APD which is damaging the economy of Caribbean countries.
Trinidad-born Baroness Benjamin, said at question time in the House of Lords: "Air passenger duty is less if you fly to Hawaii than if you fly to Barbados, even though it’s nearly double the distance.
"Would the Government consider amending the rate of APD to the Caribbean islands if they nominated Bermuda, an associate member of Caricom (the Caribbean Community) as their capital, bringing their banding into line with the US, their major tourism dependent?"
Treasury minister Lord Sassoon said: "However a banding structure works, it is bound to have anomalies."
He added that moving to two bands, as some people had advocated, would result in short-haul travellers paying more, increasing the duty for 91% of passengers.
At the same time chair of the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO) chair Ricky Skerrit told the Caribbean Marketplace conference, in the Bahamas, that the diplomacy route with the UK Government had come to a dead end.
The Minister for St Kitts and Nevis added: "The last round of discussions ended in an insult from the UK government in the form of a complete rejection of our highly researched and thought out proposals.
"For sure we will be considering an end to diplomacy and moving on to other strategies to make the UK public aware of the issues and problems that APD creates."
Caribbean governments have been campaigning against what they have labelled a discriminatory travel tax which has made flights to the Caribbean from the UK more expensive.
The APD levels are set in four bands based on the distance the destination is from the UK.
Alec Sanguinetti, director general of the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association said: "Whilst the total decline cannot be put down to APD we have lost over 270,000 UK visitors in the past three years.
"Many of our economies are suffering with high levels of unemployment and gradual reduction of service levels. Yet another APD increase this April will not help their plight."
By Diane Evans
Diane
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