ADT Stakeholder Forum: terms of reference

Purpose

1. The Scottish Government has established a stakeholder forum in order to support policy development on a Scottish replacement to Air Passenger Duty (APD), which is in the process of being devolved to the Scottish Parliament via a new Scotland Bill to implement recommendations made by the Smith Commission.

Remit

2. The initial remit of the forum is to support the development of policy proposals and identification of relevant issues which will inform the development of a Scottish Government consultation paper on a Scottish APD, intended for publication in autumn 2015, including identifying and discussing in relation to these proposals:

• opportunities for improvement
• risks to implementation
• possible alternative proposals

Once the consultation process has concluded, the remit of the forum will be to:

• provide advice and support to the Scottish Government prior to and during the legislative process of a future Scottish APD Bill before the Scottish Parliament
• where appropriate, and at the appropriate juncture, provide advice and support in the design and testing of an administrative system for the collection and management of the replacement tax

Membership

3. The following organisations will be invited to nominate a representative to attend meetings of the forum:

Scottish Airports:

• AGS Airports Limited (owner of Glasgow, Aberdeen and Southampton airports)
• Airport Operators Association
• Glasgow Prestwick
• Global Infrastructure Partners (owner of Edinburgh, Gatwick and London City airports)
• Highlands and Islands Airports Limited

Airlines:

• British Air Transport Association
• easyJet
• flybe
• International Airlines Group (owner of British Airways, Iberia and Vueling)
• Loganair
• Ryanair
• Thomson Airways
• Virgin Atlantic

Private jet services:

• NetJets

Business

• Scottish Chambers of Commerce
• Scottish Council for Development & Industry

Tax accountancy and legal:

• Chartered Institute Of Taxation
• Institute for Chartered Accountants Scotland
• Law Society of Scotland

Environmental and climate change:

• Scottish Environment LINK
• Stop Climate Chaos Scotland

Travel organisations

• Scottish Passenger Agents' Association
• ABTA

In addition, officials from Fiscal Responsibility Division (Scottish Government), Transport Scotland and Revenue Scotland will be invited to attend each meeting of the forum, with other interested officials invited to be represented depending on the agenda for the meeting.

4. The following airlines with a significant presence in Scotland will not attend meetings but will be kept regularly updated on progress and will, if they wish, receive all papers and minutes of meetings:

• Aer Lingus
• Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge
• Air Transat
• American Airlines
• CityJet
• Emirates
• Etihad Airways
• Icelandair
• Jet2
• KLM
• Lufthansa Group
• Norwegian
• Qatar Airways
• SAS
• Thomas Cook
• Turkish Airlines
• United Airlines
• Westjet
• Wizz Air

Chair

5. Generally meetings will be chaired by Sean Neill, Head of Fiscal Responsibility Division at the Scottish Government, but the first meeting will be jointly chaired by the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Constitution and the Economy and the Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Investment and Cities.

Secretariat

6. The Secretariat for the stakeholder forum is Mike Stewart, APD Policy Lead for the Scottish Government.

Frequency of meetings

7. Meetings will be held on a monthly basis during the period August to October 2015 to inform the content of the Scottish Government's consultation on a Scottish replacement to APD. Thereafter it is proposed that meetings will be held quarterly, but this will be discussed and agreed by forum members at the first meeting in August.

Agenda, meeting papers and minutes

8. An agenda and any meeting papers will be prepared and circulated usually no later than one calendar week before each meeting. Draft notes of meetings will be circulated within one working week of each meeting, to be approved by members at the following meeting.

Review

9. These terms of reference will next be reviewed following the publication of an APD consultation paper in autumn 2015.

Scottish Government

August 2015