A row brewing with the Highlands and Islands?

No matter which party is in Government you can guarantee they'll do what they can to avoid answering questions and thus create implications by omission when they do so. Thus, when Angus Macneil, the SNP MP asked the Treasury whether the people that live in the Highlands and Scottish Island would continue to maintain their air tax exemptions even if the tax changed from an air passenger duty to a per-plane tax, the response from Justine Greening was,

The budget announced that the Government will explore changes to the aviation tax system, including switching from a per-passenger to a per-plane duty, which could encourage fuller planes. Major changes will be subject to consultation.

Now I could, and probably will be, very wrong on this, but I reckon that it could be a real contentious point and row if the Coalition is seen to punish those living in hard-to-reach places with taxes on air travel and freight they rely on.

We can probably expect a "Tories always screw Scotland" line too no doubt.