Diolch, Llywydd. Nick Ramsay alleges, in reference to the dissing of his amendments, to collusion between Plaid Cymru and the Government. I'm not quite sure what degree of interaction goes on and whether it's properly called collusion, but I think it does give a difficulty for others in this Assembly who are very clearly on the opposition as to whether we’re scrutinising some degree of collusion between Plaid and the Government or whether we’re simply looking at the Government. I am disappointed with Plaid’s statement that they will not be supporting this amendment. I assume that most likely means that they will abstain. Perhaps that's part of their deal with Labour that they abstain on finance measures, except when we had the second supplementary budget, for some reason, but then they let that go through anyhow.

But I don't think it's fair to take a very binary view like this, and I don't want to be too strong in what I say about the legislature versus the Executive. I think the Cabinet Secretary slightly exaggerated what I was saying as he retold it. If this tax is coming in and, sort of April next year, we’re setting the rates for the first time, all Nick Ramsay's amendment is saying that, for the first year, we should keep it in line with the UK rates. And, as I’ve understood from the Cabinet Secretary through committee, he's been saying exactly the same thing—how important it is to have this through train and to allow the tax to settle down without having changes from SDLT for that early period while the tax is bedding in, and he himself, as far as I can discern, is saying we mustn't put these tax rates on the face of the Bill, because, implicitly, if the UK Government were to change SDLT, we’d then have to change ours, so we’d be giving a false certainty to people by putting them on the face of the Bill if we were later going to change them if they changed at the UK level. But it’s simply a matter of principle. We, as the legislators, we as the people elected, should ultimately determine what the tax rate is. Put it on the face of the Bill, be true to your principles. If this is such a big step towards greater self-government, whether it ends in independence or otherwise, as some Members would wish and others would not, it's not the right way for a key process in building a state for that decision to be delegated to Ministers by the legislature when it is so important as putting those initial tax rates that taxpayers will have to pay. So, for that reason, I will want to move amendment 38.