Calls to restore tax-free shopping for tourists at Aberdeen International Airport
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Gordon MP Richard Thomson – whose constituency includes Aberdeen International Airport – has backed calls in the House of Commons for tax-free shopping for international visitors to be restored after the UK Government removed it in January 2021.
The MP was speaking in a debate at Westminster where a cross-party group of MPs were urging the UK Treasury to revert to the previous position which, according to a study by Oxford Economics, showed that restoring tax-free shopping would directly create 78,000 new jobs across the UK and add up to £4.1 billion to the UK’s GDP.
Mr Thomson also highlighted the benefits this would bring to Aberdeen airport.
Speaking during the debate in Westminster, MP Richard Thomson said: “This is of particular significance on a couple of levels to Scotland, but particularly to rural Scotland, where tourism, hospitality, transport and the production of luxury clothing are significant contributors to the local economy.
"In addition, the whisky and spirit distilling industry is of great significance to not only the locations where it is based and the high-value employment that it creates, but the Treasury’s coffers in terms of the overall duties it pays.
“Shopping comprises about 45 per cent on average of the revenues that regional airports take in.
"That revenue is absolutely vital in keeping airports going and route development for the benefit of the area.
"Aberdeen is, of course, synonymous with the oil and gas sector, so Aberdeen airport has a strategic importance out of all proportion to the area that it serves simply because of how it serves that location and those key industries.
“I speak regularly with management at the airport. They tell me that they are losing these sales to overseas airports because of the decision.
"In actual fact that spend should be taking place, providing employment in my constituency and allowing the airport to develop routes.
"It should also be allowing us to get an economic benefit that, although not directly connected, is tangentially related to the benefits that come from tax-free shopping, which can allow the economy to develop in so many other areas and enable wider connectivity to Europe and the rest of the world.
“The policy is very much to the detriment of not only the operation of regional airports such as Aberdeen but the surrounding tourist and business economy.”
