Air Passenger Duty

To ask the Minister of State, Department for Transport what estimate he has made of the likely effect of the proposed Air Passenger Duty charges on the number of passengers travelling on each Air Passenger Duty band. (280134)

A sensitivity test for the proposed new Air Passenger Duty (APD) bands and rates was included in the Department for Transport's “UK Air Passenger Demand and C0₂ Forecasts” report, published in January 2009. The report is available at:

http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/aviation/atf/co2forecasts09/

Table 2.12 (page 48) reports the effect of this sensitivity test (rounded to the nearest five million passengers).

The breakdown of the change in 2030 demand from moving to the new APD bands and rates is shown in the following table.

*Change in 2030 forecast from central case*
New APD band	Passengers (million)
Band A	-1.4
Band B	0.0
Band C	0.0
Band D	0.0
APD exempt	-0.1
Total	-1.5
Notes: Results are rounded to nearest 0.1 million passengers. Difference in total impact from that reported in “UK Air Passenger Demand and C0₂ Forecasts” January 2009, is due to differences in rounding.

As explained in “UK Air Passenger Demand and C0₂ Forecasts”, January 2009, paragraphs 2.28 to 2.29 (page 21), the Department's central demand forecasts assume that aviation will meet its climate change costs. It is assumed these will be met by APD, plus an additional cost equal to the difference between APD and aviation's climate change costs per passenger journey (if positive). This assumption reduces the impact of changes to APD on the demand forecasts.

No assessment of the impact of the proposed new APD bands and rates without this assumption is available.

Volume 494: debated on Monday 22 June 2009