Part of 2. 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:08 pm on 19 October 2016.
I think there are two different ways in which it’s important to explore this issue in Wales. First of all, I am keen to set in motion work that will look at the whole way in which we raise local taxation in Wales and to see whether the system we currently have is the one that best reflects future needs. However, whatever methods you use for raising money, there will always be a need to find a way of distributing that money across Wales. The current formula copes with all sorts of different variations: urban needs, rural needs, age-related needs, economic arguments, needs arguments and so on. In the end, there is a fixed quantum, and, however you distribute it, the quantum remains the same. I sometimes think that the best advice to those who urge me, rather emphatically, to tear up the formula and devise a new one is that they might worry about what they wish for, because there is no way of knowing where such a fundamental reform of the formula might lead—to winners and losers, and they may not always be where people might anticipate them.