Part of 3. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:25 pm on 12 June 2019.
Thank you for that answer, Minister. I am a little concerned by your pronouncements over the last couple of days where you said that APD, if transferred, could go up, in light of the former First Minister's comments, in particular on long haul, where he said,
'yes we start from the position of looking to get rid of it, certainly not to increase it.'
You, yourself, are on record as saying that if APD was transferred and lowered, potentially an extra 0.5 million passengers could use Cardiff Airport. I'm unaware of a consumer tax that, if it's raised, actually incentivises people to use it. So, can you clarify your comments, and in particular some of the remarks of the finance Secretary, that, given some of the pronouncements that have been made by the Welsh Government over the last couple of weeks, actually instead of decreasing APD if it was to be transferred, you as a Government might well be looking to increase it to meet your environmental goals?