Well, I can't be responsible for the obscurity of the Conservatives' language, but I am glad to have that illumination.

In the Finance Committee a few weeks ago, when the finance Secretary gave evidence to us, I was intrigued to hear Eluned Morgan in ecstatic tones say that the most exciting part of his announcement about devolved taxes at the beginning of October was that we've got a new tax. Now, there are many things I get excited about, but new taxes are not one of them, and I suppose it shows the difference in mindset between a socialist on the one hand and somebody with libertarian instincts like me on the other.

So, I see taxation, of course, as inevitable in a modern society to pay for the things that are provided through the Government, but nevertheless we should always, I think, seek to create a tax system that does not get in the way of wealth creation, and, I don't believe, as our motion says in the final paragraph, that we should place extra tax burdens on individuals and businesses or punish individuals for their lifestyle choices.

Low-tax economies generally tend to be the ones that are most successful. Now, the finance Secretary has criticised me on more than one occasion for mentioning Singapore. The last time I raised the position of Singapore, he referred to my dystopian vision of Britain as a Singapore-style economy. Well, it would be a very good thing if we did replicate Singapore's success in the modern world. In 1965, when Singapore became independent, their average income was $500 a year; now it's $55,000 a year—the average income in Singapore. That has come about because of the pro-business culture of the Singaporean Government in the last half century. 

In the period from 1965 to 2015, there was a 3,700 per cent increase in the average income of people in Singapore, compared with only 300 per cent in the United States. And if we just take the 15 years from 2000 to 2015, there was a 35 per cent increase in the standard of living in Singapore, compared with only 8 per cent in the United States. They do seem to understand how to create wealth and prosperity, so perhaps we can learn something from them. Ninety per cent of Singaporeans are owner-occupiers, and it's not because they don't have good education or good health services either; there are many studies that show that Singapore has some of the highest standards in the world.

Now, the Welsh Government is in the process of using its freedom to set new taxes and to vary taxes, I think, to go in entirely the wrong direction. The possibility of introducing a tourist tax, I think, has been roundly condemned by anybody who has anything to do with the tourist industry. It is of massive importance to the Welsh economy, particularly in Mid and West Wales, which I represent. Wales, at the moment, has 5 per cent of the UK population, but only 3 per cent of the UK's tourists and only 2 per cent of tourist spend. It seems to me to be quite quixotic to be imposing taxes, or proposing the imposition of taxes upon tourists, particularly as the United Kingdom, in the World Economic Forum study of the taxes upon tourism around the world, is placed in position 135 out of 136 countries in terms of competitiveness. We should be doing all that we can to encourage, not discourage tourism into Wales and the United Kingdom generally.

Of course, the hospitality industry in Wales has roundly condemned this proposal. Anthony Rosser, who is the chairman of the British Hospitality Association in Wales, and manager of the Lake Vyrnwy hotel, says:

'We already have very real worries over the recent cauldron of costs that have boiled over in the last 18 months, including increases in business rates, wage increases, rising inflation and food and energy hikes. Increasing costs like this will, of course, be handing an unfair advantage to our competitors in England.'

So, my party will be roundly opposing any proposal to introduce a tourist tax if one is presented to us in due course.

The latest announcement is not a tax as such, but equivalent to a tax—the proposal to introduce minimum alcohol prices into Wales. This is supposedly to cure the problems of excessive alcohol drinking, but it can never do that, given the mess of alcohol duties and taxes generally throughout the United Kingdom. We have the highest alcohol taxes in Europe, overall—77 per cent of the price of a bottle of Scotch is accounted for by tax—[Interruption.] Yes.