Part of 2. 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 1:43 pm on 27 September 2017.
As you know, Cabinet Secretary, some of us on the Finance Committee, and indeed other Members of the Chamber in general, did feel that there was a very strong argument at the time for having the tax rates and bands on the face of the Bill, but your commitment at Stage 2 to publish the rates well in advance of April went a long way to allaying these concerns—a commitment that you repeated on 28 March in this Chamber, which, according to the Record, says that you said they would be published by 1 October, and I think that is the commitment that was given to the Finance Committee. [Interruption.] Okay. I’m not going to be pedantic about it at this point, Cabinet Secretary. You have committed to publish those rates and bands next week. I’ve already asked you if you will ensure that we do get the full information. Will you agree with me that the Welsh taxpayer does, at this milestone point of devolution of taxation, need to have full confidence that they do have the information at their disposal in advance of April so that, when we do get to that point of tax devolution, we have the smoothest transition possible, and we get the successful tax devolution that everyone in this Chamber would want.