<p>Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders</p>

Part of 2. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:52 pm on 11 October 2016.

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Photo of Carwyn Jones Carwyn Jones Labour 1:52, 11 October 2016

I’m not surprised he doesn’t want to discuss his record in the 1980s, but there was one phrase there that I picked up on—the creation of a low-tax economy. Now, I thought his party’s line was that they didn’t want to see any tax devolution to this place. So, he must make his mind up as to what he means by that. I think there is merit in looking, for example, at the way corporation tax operates, particularly in terms of tax breaks, and I think the Treasury needs to be far more flexible in terms of the powers that it gives in that regard. Why not, for example, have a system of tax breaks for research and development in Wales? These are the sorts of powers that I think will be practical, without carrying too much danger in terms of any potential loss of income through the Barnett formula. So, I think it’s quite correct to say that we want to make sure that Wales is a good place to invest. We see it—we’ve seen a number of big investors coming in to Wales over the past year and beyond. There is the challenge of Brexit, of reassuring investors in the future that they’ll have access to the European market, bigger than America and Russia combined, and we intend to make sure that they see Wales as a natural place to invest to access that market in the future.