Well, indeed. We were, of course, clearing up the mess that was left to us in 1979. [Interruption.] Many Members in this Assembly, of course, are not old enough to remember those dark days of the 1970s, but there are some of us with long, long memories indeed. But this is an important debate because tourism is massively important to Wales, and as one of the Members for Mid and West Wales—of course, we have all the best bits of the tourist industry—then it means it’s of even greater importance to us.

It’s very useful, I think, to introduce some of the background statistics into this, against which any new proposal for a tax would have to be measured. Wales’s share of tourist visits to the UK is about 3 per cent, and, of those, 43 per cent visit Wales only. The average stay in Wales is six nights, and the average spend is £363 per person. That’s £61 per night on average and that is much less than the average spend in the UK, which is £100. Now, we don’t know at what rate any tourist tax would be imposed, but the Bevan Foundation has suggested £1. Well, £1 on £61 may not seem very much, but bearing in mind the facts that I mentioned earlier on in questions to the finance Secretary in relation to the price competitiveness of Britain in world markets—. I’ll repeat what I said earlier on, if I can find my glasses. Britain is almost bottom of the world league table in terms of price competitiveness: one hundred and thirty-fifth out of 136 countries. We at our peril make that situation even worse, and although it may not seem very much—£1 or £2 or whatever—it could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for many people, and anything that makes Wales a less attractive place to visit in terms of value for money cannot be good for the tourist industry.

Yes, there are examples all around the world of the successful introduction of tourist taxes. Where they do tend to work is where demand on the part of tourists is pretty inelastic. Bath is currently, I believe, thinking about introducing some kind of a tourist tax. Well, getting around Bath in the tourist season is often very difficult. Venice is another case in point, or even New York or San Francisco, as mentioned by Joyce Watson earlier on. These are all international venues that have relatively inelastic demand for visits. Whether that would be so for Wales or all of Wales is a different matter altogether and, against the background of economic difficulty that we’ve lived and grappled with for many years, I do think that we’d be taking a very great risk indeed if we added further to the tax burden, which might tend to make it a less attractive place for foreigners in particular to visit.