Scotland Bill — House of Commons, 2015-06-29
Topic: Transportation
Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am grateful to the hon. Members for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) and for North Durham (Mr Jones) for the way that they have spoken about this issue. I am unconvinced by the argument that they had to table an amendment to delete the devolution of air passenger duty in order to make speeches. Speeches could be made on clause stand part. None the less, whatever the flow of logic, I am delighted that they have confirmed that they support the devolution of APD. I will be very supportive, in return, of some of the arguments that they have made As I have been through this issue in one guise or another over the past few years, I thought that it might be useful to remind the Committee of a little bit of history. The devolution of APD was proposed by the Calman commission. For Members who were not in the House at that time or who are not fully up on these matters, the Calman commission was the response of the Unionist parties to the SNP’s breakthrough in the 2007 election. We are still debating the devolution of APD because it disappeared from the legislative programme arising from Calman that was enacted in the last Parliament. It was proposed again by the Smith commission, which was the response of the Unionist parties, through the vow, to try to deflect the yes campaign in the final days of last year’s referendum Both those events, incidentally, have been overtaken by the fact that 56 Members of Parliament now adorn these Benches for the Scottish National party. No doubt, at some occasion in the not too distant future, we will be back debating the Government’s response to that latest political development. Surely history tells us—the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton referred to this—that it would have been far better to have been more extensive and generous with devolution in the first place, and that we should not repeat the mistakes that the Government and the Unionist parties made in the past I had a meeting with Howard Davies a few years back when he was asked to chair the Airports Commission. I will be generous and say that it was set up to address the under-capacity and congestion at airports in the south-east of England—or perhaps it was to bash Boris’s proposal for an island airport. The point was to reconcile between Heathrow and Gatwick. We can be absolutely certain about two things in respect of the proposals that will come from the Howard Davies commission. First, we can be certain that, whatever the final adjudication, it will be some considerable time before either Heathrow or Gatwick emerges as the winner from the process. Secondly, we can be certain that, whatever emerges from the process, considerable amounts of public money, running into many billions of pounds, will be devoted, by one means or another, to expanding the capacity of those airports, which are severely congested at the moment The reason I mention this is that when I had my meeting, as First Minister, with Mr Davies—it might be Sir Howard Davies now, for all I know—[Interruption.] I am told that he is soon to be ennobled—other people have more information on these things than I do. Anyway, when I had my meeting with Sir Howard, I said, "Given that, whatever happens, your proposals will take some time to be enacted, would it not be a grand idea for you to propose, in the meantime, measures to relieve some of the congestion in the south of England airports? Perhaps reducing air passenger duty in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the north of England and, pro tem at least, diverting some of the business from those airports would relieve some of the extraordinary pressure on them."