Jim Mather, Argyll’s MSP, is concerned at the economic impact on the Argyll islands and the other Scottish Islands of the potential loss of the Air Passenger Duty exemption most such flights have previously enjoyed.
The exemption is part of a ‘restructuring’ currently under consideration as the UK coalition government examines every way the country can pay its way out of the crippling debt it racked up in the past two years.
The exemption from Air Passenger Duty currently applies to passengers departing from Highlands and Island airports in services operated by aircraft with less than 20 seat capacity or 10 tonnes maximum take-off weight.
Plans to ‘restructure’ these regulations could lead to significant increases in island flight charges.
Jim Mather says: ‘My colleague at Westminster, Angus MacNeil, MP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, and the SNP Transport spokesperson there, has been questioning Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Justine Greening on this matter but has so far been unable to extract any definitive response that present exemptions will be retained.
‘While this would have a major negative effect on flights serving the Western and the Northern Isles it could also very seriously impact upon flights between Argyll airports to the Inner Hebrides and the lifeline services to Glasgow from Islay and Campbeltown.
‘To lose this exemption would be a severe handicap to the local economy and we must ensure that the UK Treasury recognise the impact of any such change in their regulations.
‘Any switch from ‘per passenger’ to ‘per plane’ taxation – without the safeguards built into present legislation – could adversely affect the frequency of flights as airlines would be obliged to seek to maximise seat capacity. It could also have serious repercussions on cargo flight frequencies and that could, in turn, affect the delivery of essential provisions and mail deliveries to our remoter communities.
‘I have already emphasised the effect that the rise in VAT charges will have particularly on the cost of rural transport and services when it comes into place in January 2011. Unless a form of rural fuel derogation is put in place and Air Passenger Duty exemptions are retained the coalition government will have to revise their much vaunted claims about a respect agenda being in operation’.
The central problem Mr Mather’s concerns underline is the inevitable lack of understanding in Westminster of the practical realities of island life and of the economic fragility of island communities.
When constituency representatives, like Angus MacNeil, raise such issues they gain little support from fellow MPs and scant attention from government ministers. To the metropolitan mind set, based almost as far from the Scottish islands as you can get in the UK, everything about the islands is peripheral.
They are physically peripheral, even to Scotland. They are economically peripheral. Their voice is peripheral.
In the words of Stevie Smith, they may be ‘too far out’ and ‘not waving but drowning’ but a cheery wave back is all they’re likely to get in response to their cries for help.
This situation is a sharp example of the need for serious changes to the way the UK as a whole is governed. Devolution is incomplete. The sensitive management of complex regions – never mind of huge sprawling landmasses like Scotland, with its island stepping stones reaching out into the Atlantic to the west and north – now requires far greater regional fiscal authority.
The endgame may be a form of federal independence that could legitimately satisfy nationalists and unionists alike.
When proposals like the experimental trial of Road Equivalent Tariff (RET) was announced to be tested in the Western Isles last year that proposition was immediately contested and disputed by small minded politicians, not from the deep south of England but from far closer to home.
The choice of the Western Isles for the RET trial was for various reasons a no brainer
It has a variety of routes in operation from Ullapool, Uig and Oban as well as smaller inter island services. It is more ferry dependent than any other locality. It has suffered from serious depopulation over many decades and transport costs have been identified as crucial in that scenario.For comparisons on the effect of RET it is ideal.
In spite of this the protests from MPs who must clearly have seen that their own localities would ultimately benefit hugely from the introduction of RET continued for long after the trial was set up. Dire warnings about island economies facing economic collapse as the entire tourist trade redirected itself to the favoured Western Isles proved to be wholly inaccurate.Rather did the initial RET results indicate that islands in waiting would do well to anticipate future increased demand and prepare to upgrade facilities for the anticipated increase in visitors.
Our island communities and the lands they inhabit are part and parcel of what is Scotland. Our western islands are individual and unique and uniquely individual. They offer an alternative lifestyle and locality and while the physical business of getting to and from them can present problems the growth and development of the internet and the world wide web mean that many people can have the very best of both worlds by living and working within sight of the machair and the Atlantic and yet be only the click of a “send” button away from the business world that most people live in.These islands should be treated as a massive national asset rather than as the liabilities that our distant government appears to look upon them.
I often listen to Radio 4 and am bemused when they refer, as they do regularly, to The North when in reality the area that they are talking about is often not even halfway up! Scotland is another country…….
While I would not dispute the urgent need for radical change in how we are governed I have difficulties, as seemingly do most others , in the federal construct, as the problem is only recognised at the edges of this “united” kingdom. Norway eventually reasserted her national independence from her neighbour Sweden in 1905 and became a normal country again. Good neighbours live side by side in harmony although in contrast to her neighbour Norway has famously remained as a participant in the business of the world making her decisons for herself and has been punished on occasion for that and contributed handsomely to the common good as a peacemaker and mediator at other times.
That is the path that I hope Scotland takes. Stop the world we want to get on!
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