Can I welcome the Cabinet Secretary’s statement today? Landfill tax might not be the talk of pubs and clubs across Wales, but it is an important tax and can be an important tool for Welsh Government to effect environmental policy in Wales.

I’m going to be part of the Finance Committee scrutiny into the landfill tax, so I will keep my comments and questions brief today, Cabinet Secretary, the Deputy Presiding Officer will be pleased to know. I have three questions. Firstly, you and your predecessor, who’s in the Chamber today, have repeatedly stated and restated your belief that Welsh taxes should be consistent with their existing English counterparts to aid a smooth transition. There shouldn’t be a deviation, unless it is absolutely necessary, to avoid unnecessary confusion. But you did suggest in your statement today that you will be deviating from the current taxation arrangements with landfill tax where anomalies—I think that’s what you called them—exist. I wonder if you could elaborate on these anomalies and what is going to be necessary to deal with them.

Secondly, you mentioned the important issue of tax evasion. This will be a new tax, to all intents and purposes, when the existing tax is switched off, as we say. How confident are you that measures against tax evasion in the future, after the new tax comes into play, will be as efficient and rigorous as they have been up until now? I think from your comments earlier you were pointing out that, actually, the current system hasn’t been as good as with some other taxes, so I understand that you see this as an opportunity to make the system better.

And thirdly and finally, and more broadly, we are as an Assembly, as a Welsh Government, planning this, the second Welsh tax, whilst the Welsh Revenue Authority is still being devised. It’s still in embryonic form; we know that the selection of the chair will be coming up in the near future. So, the success of this tax and, indeed, the replacement of stamp duty, is linked to the success of the new authority. How are you building these new taxes, as they’re developed, into the DNA of the WRA to make sure that the new taxes and, indeed, the new Welsh Revenue Authority, do hit the ground running when the old taxes are switched off, because that will be a very sudden process? We want it to be as smooth as possible, but, one way or another, in 2018—I presume at midnight; I’m not sure the exact time that it’ll happen—those old taxes will be switched off, and we need the new taxes to be as reliable and efficient as possible. Thank you.