MSPs will urge ministers to restore ADS business travel

Scotland’s transport minister has admitted that the Government did not look at other European schemes, to cut the cost of flying on lifeline air services, before deciding to remove business travel from the Air Discount Scheme (ADS).

That’s according to Orkney MSP, Liam McArthur, who tabled a parliamentary question asking whether, before it decided to cut business travel, the Government had investigated similar schemes.

Mr McArthur said: “The change has hit many businesses and voluntary and public bodies hard. They have the difficult choice of spending more to travel or of cutting back the number of flights they take. And if the numbers of people flying reduces, that puts flights at risk.”

He added: “Tavish Scott and I have a meeting with the Transport Minister and with his boss, Alex Neil, the Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure and Capital Investment, at the end of the month. We sought this meeting so that we could outline to the ministers the impact the cut to ADS is having and our worries about the implications if it is not reversed.  We will urge the ministers to restore business travel to the ADS, arguing that there is no evidence to support their ‘belief’ that the damaging cut had to be made.”