I thank Mike Hedges, and I completely agree with his final point there that robust data is essential for the Government’s own forward planning and its own tax plans, and it’s essential for us as an Assembly, then, in holding the Government to account and scrutinising those. I share, I think, his implicit concern that we don’t have that data at the Wales level enough, and certainly not timely enough. It lags behind enormously. So, in the current situation, we will be trying to scrutinise the Welsh Government plans around the economy, around investment, on data that dates back 18 months or even further, and that is not good enough. There is a lesson from Scotland there about working to get more data that’s up to date and is Scottish-specific.

We also know, from the examination of the two tax Bills that we’ve taken through as the Finance Committee, that as you look at the data, and as you get more Welsh data, the picture changes. It changes enormously. It changed for landfill tax; it changed enormously for stamp duty. So, that is a lesson for us all. It changed for the border as well, but Mike Hedges will recall that.

I have to say, Deputy Presiding Officer, although we’ve had a conversation between members of the Finance Committee in the Chamber here, I’d still want to agree with Mike Hedges’s basic point, which is: this isn’t just for the Finance Committee now; this is 60 Members raising income tax for Wales. The way we go about that, at the end of the day, is going to be essential for everyone. So, if you like, I’ll make no apologies—I’ll come back again with further statements, I’m sure, with the permission of the Chair and the Business Committee, just for everyone to have the opportunity to know what we’re doing in the Finance Committee and how that is actually moving on apace, really, with not only the scrutiny but the way we build a parliamentary approach to financial legislation, whatever that might be—budget Bill, finance Bill or whatever we end up with. Just to say on that point, I would see that as a piece of joint work. I want the Welsh Government to be part of that; I want the Finance Committee to be part of that. Our job here is surely to build the parliamentary process, and that’s not a question that the Government proposes, we criticise and we come up with an alternative, and then they criticise us and so forth. That’s a joint piece of work, I would hope, and certainly, as Chair of the Finance Committee, I’d want to take it forward with that spirit, and I sense that the committee wants to do so as well. We have to work with asymmetric devolution, although my criticism of it would be the same as Mike Hedges’s.

Finally, I was more subtle than Mike Hedges when I said that not everything in Scotland is better than we do it here, but the fact is that the finance committee in Scotland didn’t scrutinise their draft budget. It was done in a much more political way, if you like, between party deals and party agreements. We have party deals and party agreements here, but it does not stop the Finance Committee scrutinising the draft budget thoroughly. This year, we’ll be doing it even more thoroughly than ever before, and there’ll be an opportunity for all committees to do that as well, and I hope they’ll join with us and that this will be a learning process for us all.