SNP 'should reconsider air tax cut plan to tackle climate change'
The Scottish Government's plan to slash air passenger duty (APD) shows it is "full of hot air on climate change'', according to Labour.
The party's environmental justice spokeswoman, Sarah Boyack, said the SNP administration's move to cut and then ultimately abolish the tax would see an extra 50,000 greenhouse gas emissions in Scotland every year.
But the Government said it was working with environmental groups among others in developing legislative proposals.
Ms Boyack, MSP for the Lothians, said: "This winter in Paris we saw an agreement which has the potential to change the future of our planet for the better. For the first time ever the nations of the world have come together to agree that every single one of them will act to cut carbon pollution.
"In the coming months and years we have a huge amount of work to do to deliver on the promises made in Paris; that means we should all consider doing our own bit to tackle climate change.
"Yet one of the first things the SNP Government plan to do with the new powers coming to Scotland is to cut air passenger duty, at an initial cost of £125 million.
"Scottish Labour believes that government would be better investing in our communities than on business-class flights, but it will also make the ambitions of Paris all the more difficult to achieve. The SNP should reconsider this plan - or else their posturing on climate change just looks like a lot of hot air.''
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: "We are taking action across a range of sectors to cut and mitigate emissions and Scotland is on track to meet our world-leading 42% reduction target ahead of schedule. In fact, we are outperforming the rest of Western Europe, with only Sweden managing to achieve greater greenhouse gas reductions.
"UK APD has been the most expensive tax of its kind in Europe and continues to act as a barrier to Scotland's ability to secure new direct air routes and maintain existing ones.
"Our planned 50% reduction in APD will begin in April 2018 and we plan to abolish the tax when public finances permit. This will help meet our objective to generate sustainable growth for the Scottish economy by improving connectivity to Scottish airports.''
She added: "We will consider how to apply the 50% reduction to best support our strategic objective to boost Scotland's international connectivity, informed by engagement with stakeholders and responses to a future policy consultation.
"We recognise that there are also important environmental issues to consider and that is why we are working with environmental groups on our APD stakeholder forum and we will be undertaking and publishing a Strategic Environmental Assessment alongside the development of our legislative proposals.''