Well, I wouldn't agree with him about that, Dirprwy Lywydd. I don't think it does damage reputations to discuss ideas, even when there are ideas we might disagree about. I think it is possible to have a debate about ideas that contributes to the reputation of this institution rather than, as the motion suggests, diminishing it.

There will be Members in the Chamber, I know, who will remember that famous historian, Alan Taylor—A.J.P Taylor—and will remember his review of a book by his rival historian, Hugh Trevor-Roper, in which Alan Taylor said that the book 'would have damaged Trevor-Roper's reputation as a serious historian had he ever had one', and I cannot help but think that the motion is doing the same as far as the reputation of the UK Independence Party is concerned. It's not about damage to the reputation of the Welsh Government or the National Assembly for Wales. It might have done damage to the reputation of the UK Independence Party, had it ever had one to damage. 

Now then, having turned its back on experimentation, the motion then turns its back on taxation itself. The mover offered us his normal assertion that cutting taxes is the way to prosperity. In that very strange combination of enthusiasm for both libertarianism and Singapore, he said to us—it is very hard to hold those two things in your mind at the same time, I agree—. He failed to draw any attention to the fact that there is no evidence in general that lower taxes boost growth, though badly designed taxes can hamper it, and, indeed, the OECD has found that taxes used effectively, for example, to combat inequality, support economic growth, rather than frustrate it. The language of burden and punishment in the motion tells its own story, and it sets the party that moved this resolution aside from other parties in this Chamber.

By contrast, Steffan Lewis, in moving the Plaid Cymru amendment, recognised the opportunities bought about by tax devolution and the sense in exploring innovative tax possibilities. He highlighted a particular form of plastics tax and he restated the call to the UK Government to devolve air passenger duty to Wales. There is little in the amendment with which we would disagree, and a great deal with which we are in agreement. Members will understand that the sequence in which we will vote this afternoon means that we will have to oppose the Plaid Cymru amendment in order to reach the Government amendment, but that is procedural rather than substantive in terms of what that amendment had to say. Indeed, the Conservative Party amendment had two components of its three that we could have supported. I won't dwell on the tourism tax either, as Nick Ramsay didn't, simply to say that there is no proposal to introduce a tax on the tourism industry. There is a debate on four potential new taxes, none of which is yet at the proposal stage. 

As Jane Hutt has said, you cannot help but notice, however, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has taken up two of our four ideas over recent days. Today, he has proposed a new plastics tax and over the weekend a vacant land tax was clearly in his mind when he complained of the way in which planning permissions granted in London fail to be taken up by those who have those planning permissions, and leave the land sitting vacant rather than being brought into productive use. 

I'll take the chance to respond specifically to the point that Mark Reckless raised on the land transaction tax. I'm tempted to point out that it is lucky for Welsh taxpayers that the Government resisted his amendments during the passage of that Bill, which would have required me to have laid regulations by now before this Assembly on tax rates and bands. Simon Thomas, I can see, remembered the debate in which I said that. It would give a false sense of certainty to people in Wales if I were to bring those regulations in front of this Assembly before I had an opportunity to consider the impact on the rates and bands I proposed of any changes made in the Chancellor's budget. Because those regulations are not in front of the Assembly, I now have an opportunity to consider the changes that have been announced today, and I certainly will do that. And the regulations that I will bring forward will be regulations constructed in the light of the full facts.