Gosh, that was a lot of new taxes from Mike Hedges. I’m not sure whether the diesel tax would operate quite in Swansea as it might in Newport or Monmouth. But I first looked at today’s motion and read

‘it will be necessary to test this new aspect of the devolution machinery.’

My first reaction was: ‘Why?’ Surely a prerequisite is wanting to impose a new tax, and many people in Wales feel they’re paying quite enough tax already.

When the Cabinet Secretary told the Finance Committee in Newport on 23 March he wanted to test the machinery during this term, I asked him, ‘What does that mean?’ The Cabinet Secretary told us:

‘We have to propose things and those propositions will have to be tested in front of two Houses of Parliament.’

But why do we have to? The Wales Act provides us with a power, not a duty. Yet the Cabinet Secretary told the Finance Committee

‘the job of this Assembly…is to flesh out the machinery that is currently there for us to test this possibility…. We would learn how that proposition would be then tested at the other end of the M4, and we would learn a lot by doing it.’

So, is the Welsh Government keen to impose a new tax because it potentially can, or is it keen to practice, to pull some levers, and press some buttons and see what happens—a bit like my three year old when I let him in the front of our car? And how does the Cabinet Secretary—? [Interruption.] When it’s stationary, I hasten to add. And how does the Cabinet Secretary expect Westminster to respond to this approach for testing in front of two Houses of Parliament? Won’t Westminster expect us to be seeking, actually, to impose a new tax, not just experimenting to test this new aspect of the devolution machinery, as our motion says?

The Cabinet Secretary said he wants

‘a subsequent Assembly to have the legacy of the learning’, so, can he clarify: will this be an academic learning exercise or does he expect the Welsh people to pay a new tax in consequence?

In Newport, the Cabinet Secretary referred approvingly to the Bevan commission report, talking about a tourism tax, a sunbed tax and the takeaway packaging tax. Just now, he didn’t mention quite as many as Mike Hedges, but he did say also a land or garden tax and a water tax. But aren’t we trying to encourage tourism and aren’t we in danger of forgetting the purpose of tax? Surely it is to raise money when necessary, not to experiment or punish people for using sunbeds or eating takeaways.