Part of 1. 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 1:41 pm on 7 June 2017.
There is massive empirical evidence that proves the opposite of what the finance Secretary is asserting. It’s not my study that I referred to a moment ago; that’s an academic study performed by the wholly independent Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation. It must be obvious that if you put up taxes, therefore that has some economic impact, whether through reductions or increases. And given that business taxes reduce the amount of money that companies have available for investment and, indeed, for distribution to shareholders and to employees in the form of wages, there are bound to be very significant repercussions of such a dramatic increase in taxes as Labour is proposing. In those circumstances, it’s bound to have an impact upon Wales in particular. And, as we have only 75 per cent of the average gross value added in the United Kingdom in Wales—we’re the poorest part of the United Kingdom—it’s the poorest people in the poorest part of the United Kingdom who are going to suffer most from a Labour Government.