Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:32 pm on 29 November 2016.
Can I thank the Member for his broad welcome for the Bill and its purposes? He made some important points at the beginning about the alignment between taxes that are coming to Wales and our policy agenda. This has been a very successful tax as far as changing behaviour is concerned. The total tonnage of waste in Wales going to landfill fell by 52 per cent between 2001 and 2013. The Office for Budget Responsibility in its autumn statement predicted that take from this tax will reduce more rapidly than it had earlier in the year and that is part of the alignment between the policy agenda and the tax agenda.
Our aim, as he said, is to begin this tax with as close a replication of existing arrangements as we can while improving them. I have no doubt that as these powers come practically into operation, the ability to revisit our ambitions in this area, and see whether there’s more that we could make of this new lever, will be something that Ministers will want to consider at that time.
The Member asked questions about the relationship between the WRA and Natural Resources Wales. The decision to ask Natural Resources Wales to undertake the enforcement aspect of this tax is because of its presence already in the waste field—the fact that it is possessed of information about how it operates on the ground and to put that to best use.
We are already providing some additional funding to NRW in order to allow it to prepare for these new duties. We will see whether it is necessary to go on doing that in future in that way. I am certainly open to discussions as the Bill proceeds as to some revenue-sharing arrangements. If Natural Resources Wales is able, by bearing down on illegal waste sites, to increase the flow of revenue into the WRA, it does not seem unreasonable to me that they should not be allowed to keep a share of that additional revenue in order to promote it to do more work in this area. I look forward to discussing that possibility as the Bill moves through the process of scrutiny.