Halving airline tax would cost £189 million

● Labour says SNP would be losing more than it spends on schools attainment gap

The Scottish Government will lose more from a controversial “tax cut” for airlines than it’s spending to close the attainment gap in schools, Labour has said.

Ministers want to reduce and eventually scrap Air Passenger Duty Tax in Scotland as part of a drive to attract more flight routes to Scotland and insist Labour has no plan to boost Scotland’s “international connectivity.”

Plans to halve the tax would see a loss of about £189 million to the public purse in Scotland. That is more than the £120m Pupil Equity fund, which is aimed at tackling the education attainment gap. Scrapping the tax completely, the long-term goal, would cost about £378m, figures from Holyrood researchers indicate.

Scottish Labour’s transport spokesman Neil Bibby said: “The scale of the price of the SNP’S aviation tax cut is now clear.

“This tax break will cost more than the government’s programme for dealing with the attainment gap.

“It simply cannot be right that when we have a shortage of teachers, a recruitment crisis, and falling numeracy and literacy standards, the SNP is planning to lower taxes for frequent flyers. This won’t make Scotland any greener.

“It is time for Derek Mackay to abandon this policy before he unveils his draft budget later this year. If he doesn’t, he will need to explain to the public where the £189m of taxpayers’ money will be taken from to fund this tax cut.”

The measure faces a tough passage through the Scottish Parliament. Labour, the Greens, Liberal Democrats and Tories all opposed the plans going into last year’s election. But Ruth Davidson’s party has since performed a U-turn and announced it would back an APD cut for long-haul flights to boost economic growth.

Labour points to the reduction of 4,000 teachers in Scotland’s classrooms and teacher recruitment “crisis”, as well as as falling literacy and numeracy standards, and insists this is the wrong time for “even deeper cuts” to public services in his 2018-19 draft budget.

The plans have previously been criticised by environmental and transport campaigners – and an increase in aviation emissions will have a negative effect on our climate.

A spokesman for finance spokesman Derek Mackay said Mr Bibby has yet to apologise for “false smears” recently about train performances.

He added: “The fact is, Labour are still unable to offer any credible suggestions as to how they would boost Scotland’s international connectivity – indeed, now that they have fallen in behind the Tories in backing a hard Brexit, the only thing they are promising is to put up more barriers.”

Ryanair chief Michael O’leary is among those backing the SNP plans, insisting that it would lead to a £400m boost to Scotland’s revenues.

Mr O’leary said he would expect to double passenger numbers and insisted that it would also result in the creation of “around 3500 new jobs” directly at Scottish airports if the tax was axed by the SNP government.