I’m delighted to support the Conservative motion today. I can also say that I can support the Government amendment to it, basically because it doesn’t really say anything. But it’s a good turnout that we have, at least on this side of the Chamber today. There is, of course, what we might call an aching void in front of us on my left, apart from the few distinguished sentinels of socialism who have come to watch the proceedings and report back.

The first thing I want to do is to rise to the challenge that Steffan Lewis threw out earlier on to Nick Ramsay about what’s our vision for Wales on devolved taxes. I’m very much in favour of devolved taxes, because it gives us the opportunity in Wales to add to our natural advantages, particularly in relation to the tourism industry. I strongly, therefore, support the Plaid Cymru call for differential rates of VAT. It gives us the opportunity to reduce the tax burden in Wales relative to our neighbours, and that, therefore, will perhaps help to correct the imbalance that has grown up over the years, and which has been very eloquently described many times in this Chamber by Adam Price, about the poverty of Wales compared to other parts of the United Kingdom and how we need to do something really dramatic to correct that. My motivating force in politics all my life has been the ancient Gladstonian principle of allowing money to fructify in the pockets of the people. So, I have always generally opposed the introduction of new taxes and called for a reduction in the existing tax burden. And I think we have to recognise the economic background against which any proposal to introduce new taxes in Wales would have to be measured. The IFS has recently produced figures to show that we are now, in Britain, facing the highest tax burden that we’ve had since 1986. There are £17 billion-worth of tax rises in train for the rest of this Parliament, and, if the Government sticks to its stated objective of wiping out the deficit by 2025, that means an extra £34 billion of taxes. I’ll give way, sure.