FTO finds a use for the Human Rights Act
Comment by Jeremy Skidmore (www.jeremyskidmore.com)
At last, the day has come when we can give thanks for the Human Rights Act, and it’s all down to the Federation of Tour Operators.
I’m sure you’re all familiar with the Human Rights Act and how it has enriched our lives.
Someone who has never done a day’s work in his life breaks into your house and tries to steal all the valuable things for which you have worked so hard. Luckily, you manage to catch him and beat him to within an inch of his life before handing him over to the police.
In a sane society, the intruder is then given a lengthy jail sentence and you are commended as a decent, law abiding citizen.
But under the Human Rights Act, you are the one given the lengthy jail sentence, which inevitable results in the loss of your job and assets, while the thug who attacked you is awarded a hefty compensation package that allows him to carry on loafing, in idle luxury.
But enough about my prejudices, because the FTO is showing that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
It is using the Human Rights Act to fight the increase in Air Passenger Duty, which went up at the beginning of February from £5 to £10 and £20 to £40 on economy short-haul and long-haul flights respectively.
Confused? Well, you may remember Gordon Brown announced the tax on December 7 and it later emerged that those who had already booked for travel from February would also have to pay. But under the package travel regulations, tour operators were unable to go back and charge their customers and so had to absorb the cost of up to £50 million.
The FTO is claiming there has been a breach of the Human Rights Act, because tour operators have been deprived of income to which they are legally entitled.
Laughable, isn’t it? But it works for me if it helps put a spanner in the works of this ridiculous law.
The FTO is also challenging the whole legality of the tax. It claims that it contravenes the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation, which says the UK government cannot impose charges on aircraft solely for the right of transfer over, or exit and entry into, the UK from a fellow state.
The article was incorporated into EC law in 2004 and so if the FTO won that argument, APD would be outlawed and the government would have to pay back to airlines and customers around £2 billion that it has collected since 2004. How hilarious would that be?
Although virtually everything about European law turns my stomach, I hope the FTO at least succeeds in making this government squirm.
It’s an absolute insult to our intelligence to claim this tax is to help offset carbon dioxide emissions. We’re still waiting to hear about all the environmental projects this new revenue will supposedly help and nobody is holding their breath.
That’s all from me. If I look at this computer screen any longer, my human rights will be breached and I’ll have to make an enormous compensation claim against myself.
What’s your view?
Jeremy Skidmore
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