7. 7. Statement: The Legislative Programme

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:48 pm on 28 June 2016.

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Photo of Nick Ramsay Nick Ramsay Conservative 4:48, 28 June 2016

First Minister, I’d like to focus on the very first part of your statement relating to devolved taxes. As you say, the Welsh Government is in the process at the moment of setting up the Welsh Revenue Authority. I did seek to get it changed to ‘Revenue Wales’ in the last Assembly, but that was unsuccessful. So, we have the WRA, and, as you mentioned, landfill disposals tax and land transaction tax.

Can I say I’m pleased it’s been done in this order? When we looked at this in the Finance Committee in the last Assembly, it became obvious that, because the Scottish Government had set up the taxes or the legislation for the taxes before Revenue Scotland was in place, there were problems from that, so I’m pleased that your Government has done it this way around. Can you tell us what other lessons have been learned from the Scottish experience, because I think they’ve got a number of advantages and disadvantages to the way they’ve done it and hopefully we’ve learnt the lessons so we can hit the ground running?

Neil Hamilton, earlier, mentioned potential pitfalls and I think Neil was talking about the dangers of a lack of a robust framework, particularly in comparison with the English framework. That was looked at by the Finance Committee last time as well, and, indeed, the First Minister has mentioned the anti-avoidance rule. First Minister, how will the legislation that comes forward be suitably robust in terms of each of these taxes and ensure that sufficient anti-avoidance mechanisms are in place and, indeed, where they have worked in the UK as a whole over the last many decades, that those mechanisms are retained? I think the leader of the house, in a former guise as the finance Minister in the last Assembly, said that one of the principles that you would be operating would be that there would be no deviation from the UK norm unless it was absolutely necessary and beneficial to Wales. But now that the former Minister has moved on, is that still the Welsh Government’s position? I think it would be useful if there was clarification on that.

Finally, Deputy Presiding Officer, how is all of this going to be communicated to stakeholders and to the public? I think to say that there is a lack of awareness of tax devolution that is coming down the line in 2018 to Wales would be an understatement. It’s a worse situation than that. I know that the Finance Committee previously looked at ways that we could raise awareness of the transfer or the devolution of taxation to this place. Could you update us on work that has been done in this area, because we have two taxes before us now and we’re going to get further taxes coming down the line? This situation, as Members have said, is going to get more and more complex, and it’s important that we carry not just Members, but the public along with us as well.