Why the rise in Air Passenger Duty matters to BME communities up and down the UK
‘A wicked tax’ as many members of my friends and family explain to me when I am helping them find tickets ‘going home’ to Jamaica or Grenada.
Ethnic Minority Liberal Democrats (EMLD) will be holding a fringe event at Spring Conference looking at the effects of the controversial Air Passenger Duty (APD) on BME communities and the economy as a whole. I have real concerns that when the new levy is introduced this April, the party could be seen in a negative light amongst some communities.
APD was a duty that was introduced in 1994 with a £5 rate for the UK/EU and £10 elsewhere. Since then, it has seen several increases and a doubling for passengers travelling other than economy class.
Last December, the Government announced that the current structure is staying, despite a four-month long consultation, and that there will be an double inflationary increase. It is expected that the duty will raise £3.2 billion from receipts in 2015 and £3.8 billion in 2017 (against receipts of £2.2 billion for 2011).
Because APD is a socially regressive duty, the impact on BME communities in the UK will be quite profound. They have a tendency to travel more than people going on holiday in order to maintain their links with home communities. They also tend to earn lower incomes so any increase in costs in aviation would impact on them more than any other group.
Communities of Caribbean origin have been working closely with Caribbean High Commissioners lobbying the government to lower the charge for Caribbean flights. They feel they are being unfairly discriminated against and denied the right to keep their links with their respective communities.
As a result of the changes coming into place in April, many more of our communities, especially from the Indian Sub Continent and Latino communities have started to raise awareness through various social media outputs. The opinions of these communities matter as they will become a major voting force in 2015 and this will be an issue which will have an impact on their voting intent.
The duty is having a deterrent effect on a variety of other areas such as:
- fewer overseas visitors willing to fly in and out of the UK and thus encouraging behaviour which increases aviation’s carbon footprint;
- businesses thinking twice about setting up shop here or expanding operations, with executives from the BRICS economies ( according to a recent British Chamber of Commerce survey) preferring to expand their operations in mainland Europe;
- non EU airlines removing capacity, thus putting under threat UK connectivity to key and new markets.
It is important that we in the Liberal Democrats have the debate and undertake work to garner a better understanding on the ramifications of the duty, especially on many of our communities.
I hope you can join me, with Darren Caplan of the Airport Operators Association, the Trinidadian High Commissioner to the UK, Garvin Nicholas, and Lord Shipley in what will be a stimulating debate.
Air Passenger Duty Hike: Impact on BME Communities and the British Economy, Saturday 10 March 2012, 1-2pm, SageGateshead MEC 5
* James Jennings is the Vice Chair of Ethnic Minority Liberal Democrats
Follow @LibDemVoice on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Lord Bonkers' Diary: Conservative members are now attacking their real enemy... each other
Starmer making a mistake over Single Market - Davey
Reviewing the general election
Weekly Road Report - West End Ward #dundeewestend
A quiet conference
From Creeting St Peter to the (Liberal Democrat) world...
On the 20th anniversary of the Orange Book
Chris Moore
Peter Martin
David Le Grice
Roland
12 Comments
I’m sure the Airport Operators Association cares deeply about the social well-being of BME communities.
But the suggestion that this is “unfair discrimination” and a denial of rights is belittling of the real discrimination and human rights abuses that minorities face around the world. I doubt there are many policies or taxes that affect all people equally. That doesn’t mean they are discriminatory.
Is a tax on consumption of a carbon intensive activity such as long haul air travel really ‘socially regressive’ ?
Who has most to lose from a rise in sea level ?
Is carbon vouchers the only solution (- choose one or two of either having a car, eating meat & dairy, using central heating or flying long haul – but not all four)?
The duty to Jamaica from next fiscal year is £81 per flight (no APD is levied on the return), which is about the same amount of money as would be paid if VAT were levied. So it seems to me that APD is making up for aviation’s rather anomalous exemption from VAT.
For those people who do not have family and/or cultural links overseas, flights may well seem to be a luxury, but for many minority ethnic members of our society the ability to travel back to their ancestral homelands is a necessity, and not a luxury, albeit these lands may well be deemed as tropical and exotic to some.
As for Graham’s choice of four, I live in the depths of Berkshire where transport links are ridiculous, so a car is a necessity for the work that I undertake (most of which is in the voluntary sector, pro bono), I am vegetarian so do not eat meat, but I do rather like my leather heated car seat (this does cause a moral dilemma for me), I am lactose intolerant so dairy products I try to avoid where possible, but Belgium Chocolate Ice Cream is rather tempting, as for needing central heating, well this is England, need I say more, and yes I do need to fly long haul in order to get back to fulfil my family duties at least once a year, so I do not actually need all four, but I do know many people that do.
It should be remembered that having a more ethnically diverse heritage to the majority is not a ‘life style choice’, but as a result of birth, and in order to be a fully rounded individual then maintaining ones links with ones heritage is surely vitally important. As for sea levels rising, many of us are only too aware of these dangers as we hail from those very countries such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand and numerous other similar places that have experienced the trauma caused by natural disasters involving the oceans. The countries that are/will suffer the greatest from the results of the carbon dioxide that is being pumped into the atmosphere are not necessarily the major contributors ( in fact the countries mentioned are not) to this man made disaster.
James has rightly highlighted ‘yet another’ barrier that some within this country face, it is not trivial, and causes many people much anxiety, especially when they need to be close to their loved ones overseas, but cannot due to further financial restrictions.
Please come along to the debate that James has organised, from the responses so far, there is clearly going to be a stimulating and thought provoking debate.
If there are separate BME “communities” in the UK then why be in the UK at all? When one in 5 UK children is of mixed-race, surely BME citizens are members of the local community wherever they live? (just like me, as an immigrant here in Slovakia).
“If there are separate BME “communities” in the UK then why be in the UK at all?” states Richard Swales.
Surely this is a strange question to pose on a Liberal Democrat site? As far as I am aware the Liberal Democrat Party has no intention of adopting the very questionable, and certainly not inclusive ‘one nation’ approach that others have? if it does, it will certainly lose many of the social minded members, who thankfully appear to be the majority from the interactions that I have had.
Perhaps Richard, you could expand on your thoughts, for they appear to me rather troubling, but perhaps I have not grasped what you mean?
Ruwan,
I think you’re being a bit unfair on Richard, who is highlighting an overlap in definition between citizenship and membership of a community.
As another Berkshire person I wouldn’t want to be seen ganging up with you against him, when instead it is more productive to use that overlap as a means of explaining how opinion becomes polarised to the detriment of society as a whole.
Travel is a significant and permanent barrier to maintaining any long-distance relationship, but I wouldn’t argue for specific favours in taxation on communitarian grounds as this can be equally divisive. Rather liberals should be seeking ways to enhance freedom of movement and travel more generally to prevent such issues of difference from creating any problems in the first place.
As things stand flights do have a significant environmental impact which must still be accounted for, even where this is balanced against communal needs. Anyway, I find it more productive to appreciate the time we do spend with loved ones rather than spend time regretting it can’t be more…
@Ruwan Uduwerage-Perera
“As far as I am aware the Liberal Democrat Party has no intention of adopting the very questionable, and certainly not inclusive ‘one nation’ approach that others have?”
Perhaps you’d like to expand on what you believe “one nation” politics to be in the UK?
@Ruwan – perhaps it is a strange question to be on a Lib Dem site, but as the only Lib Dem member living in Slovakia I have a different perspective. I have married locally, have two bi-national children and I am part of the wider community, not some British ex-pat community thank god. When I see people trying to live like that I ask them “Why be in Slovakia?”
Clearly, if one in 5 of all children in the UK are now mixed race, then this narrative of people belonging to closed, race-based communities rather than their geographic, neighbour-based communities doesn’t match reality for most BME people (again, thank god).
It is n’t the 1st of April yet, but I see conference session is coming!
When my grandparents came to Britain you could only travel across the oceans by ship… To my parents knowledge they never visited, kept contact or mentioned the ancestral homeland and hence my parents did similar. I and others of my generation (in the family) regard England as our ancestral homeland and have wholeheartedly engaged with our local communities and would consider ourselves to be fully rounded individuals. FYI, I do not know were my ancestral home is, or my grandparents family name in that community – that information my grandparents took to the grave.
I therefore suggest members of the EMLD and BME communities do similar – you may find it quite liberating and your children may get on better as a result. If this doesn’t appeal then there is nothing stopping you relocating yourselves back in your ancestral homelands since you are obviously not wholeheartly committed to living in your adopted country.
Robert, that is uncalled for and unwelcome. But you must’ve been tired as it was late when you wrote it.
It’s strange that you equate commitment to ‘ancestral homelands’ as ‘liberating’ (providing security, obviously, but ‘liberating’?), so could you perhaps explain why you think the importance of the right to settle outweighs that of the freedom to travel?
I think most people here recognise the value of community, but not to the extent that it becomes suffocating.
Oranjepan
I don’t equate commitment to ‘ancestral homelands’ as ‘liberating’, in fact the converse. In some ethnic communities/families you can see the stifling effect of the ancestral umbilical cord; particularly on women.
By not having the ‘ancestral homeland’ baggage, my family has been free (although some may say forced) to create our own heritage and worldview; which I admit is heavily influenced by the country that granted my grandparents the right to settle in.
As for the relative importance of the right to settle and the freedom to travel. Firstly, lets address the “right to settle”; as a new immigrant, you have no absolute right to settle in any country other than the one you were born in, any such ‘rights’ are granted by the government of the country that gives you permission to settle. However, assuming your “right to settle” includes the permission to become a “native” then your children born in that country will (typically) be regarded as “natives” and hence automatically gain all the rights that that confers.
It should be noted that it is the first generation immigrant, that initiates the entire process, and hence they have made the choice, for whatever reasons, to move away from their “ancestral homeland” and to take on the burden of responsibility that goes with this decision. I see no reason why the country that gives these people permission to settle should take any responsibility for maintaining these people’s link with their foreign heritage, in fact quite the converse.
Secondly, freedom to travel; well assuming you have a passport and can obtain the necessary visa’s for the countries you are travelling through and to then you have freedom to travel. The only issues are whether you can afford the cost of travel and whether it is really advisable to visit as frequently as the relatives demand. Remember until comparatively recently journeys were significantly more expensive in real-terms and involved a lot more than sitting on a scheduled flight for a few hours and yet people were still able to maintain contact.
I would be interested to see some generational breakdown of those from the BME community lobbying for an APD reduction – it wouldn’t surprise me to find that the vast majority are first generation adult immigrants, along with a sizeable group of young people who moved because of their parents and hence gave up school friends etc., both of which groups are more liable to suffer from homesickness than subsequent generations.
As for the relative importance, well I think it is obvious that having a roof over your head and being able to call a place home is much more important than being able to jump on a plane to visit relations and/or ancestral communities whenever we feel the need.
As an aside I do recommend reading “Cry Wolf: A Political Fable” by Lake & Paul to better understand why we should take care when addressing the demands of recent immigrants.