A UK think tank is calling for the government to scrap ‘Ibiza tax’

The Adam Smith Institute, a neoliberal UK think thank, has called on the Conservative party to drop its air passenger duty on under 30s, known as the ‘Ibiza tax’, to improve young people’s prospects of travelling, living and working abroad.

Currently all air passengers over the age of 16 pay the duty, which at £15 for economy class flights under 2,000 miles is among the highest in the world in cost, but experts have suggested raising the age to 30 to make it easier for young people “visiting friends, working, travelling, studying and partying” abroad.

There’s a political motivation behind the suggestion. Jeremy Corbyn and his Labour party won a resounding victory among the youth vote in June’s general election, gaining 30 seats, and the free market economics-favouring TASI believe scrapping ‘Ibiza tax’ is a reasonably cheap way for the Tories to appeal to younger Brits. Otherwise it fears the Conservatives risk losing a generation of voters.

Labour have ridiculed the think thank's suggestion that the Tories can win youth voters with this policy.

Cat Smith MP, Labour’s Shadow Minister for Voter Engagement and Youth Affairs, told Huff Post UK: “This is a laughable failure to understand what young people actually care about.

“Having spoken to hundreds of young people over this summer I can say that of all their demands from government, from the crisis in mental services to huge personal debts from study, no one has raised Air Passenger Duty with me.

“This is a clear example of conservative circles completely failing to understand young people’s lives. Lives that have been made harder by a politically motivated austerity orchestrated by an out of touch Conservative Government.”

[Via: Huff Post UK]

Patrick Hinton is Mixmag's Digital Staff Writer, follow him onTwitter