Well, Llywydd, I tend to agree with what the Member has said. I might well prefer that our hands were less constrained and that this Assembly was able to make decisions about the future of tax policy in Wales without some of these constraints. But, just as in the LCO process, sometimes you have to begin with the machinery that you have and, pretty soon, in its operation, some of its deficits may become apparent, and a less cumbersome set of mechanisms emerges. We won’t know that unless we put the machinery to the test, and that’s what I am proposing we begin to work on this afternoon.

Ideas for new taxes in Wales have been put forward by a number of individuals and organisations since the Wales Act 2014 achieved Royal Assent. The Bevan Foundation’s 2016 report ‘Tax for Good’ outlined eight possible Welsh taxes—from public health taxes such as a sunbed tax and a takeaway packaging tax to a land value tax and a water tax. I am very grateful to the Bevan Foundation for making this first contribution to an emerging debate. I don’t think that they would expect that the scope of our consideration would be limited to the ideas that they outlined, and I want to look beyond that research for other ideas that support our commitment to fairness, well-being and growth. So, there have been suggestions already for new taxes to support Welsh services, such as a tax to fund social care—ideas put forward by Gerry Holtham and Eluned Morgan, which I am keen to consider as part of this debate. Other tax proposals begin from an ambition to use fiscal levers to decrease detrimental practices such as targeting land banking through a levy on unused land, and I do intend to take a particular interest in the vacant land levy that has recently been introduced in the Republic of Ireland.

New taxes also present us, Llywydd, with an opportunity to build on Wales’s strengths. We could consider taxes that aim to increase our levels of recycling, or look at the tourism tax that has been proposed in Scotland. As part of this process, I am very keen to hear ideas from all Members in this Chamber, both today and over the summer months, and I will be asking other stakeholders for their ideas too. I want to start a conversation around these new taxes with political parties, with the public, businesses and organisations across Wales. I want to hear how new taxes could operate alongside other policy tools to deliver improvements for our communities. Maybe unusually, Llywydd, sitting here in the Chamber this afternoon, I have received e-mails from members of the public setting out other new ideas that we could think about in this field. That is very important to me because I want to make viewing taxes through the eyes of the taxpayer central to the way that we develop Welsh tax policy.