Part of 1. 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:10 pm on 15 February 2017.
I think there’s an echo in this Chamber today, Cabinet Secretary, but it’s an important subject, so I will emphasise. Monday, as you said, was another landmark day for Wales’s tax journey: the announcement of Kathryn Bishop as the Welsh Government’s preferred candidate to become the first chair of the WRA. As you know, the Finance Committee will be holding a pre-appointment session hearing tomorrow. When I attended one of the embryonic meetings of the WRA at the Millennium Stadium, I remember you saying, in your official statement, that the nature of the chair’s role would have to finalised before the appointment, i.e. whether it’s a transitional chair or a permanent chair, whether or not it’s a chair with experience of management and setting up bodies like this before or fiscal experience, and whether it’s a chair that’s going to take the lead public role or the chief executive. As we approach this appointment, can you shed a little light on what kind of chair we can expect Kathryn Bishop to be? She is going to be, I assume, in one of the most important roles—we will be discussing this tomorrow, as Simon Thomas said—one of the most important roles in Welsh public life. I think we do need to know the nature of the position that was decided on before the recruitment process started.