6Dirprwy Lywydd, for very good reasons this National Assembly decided that the Tax Collection and Management (Wales) Act 2016 should prohibit the disclosure of protected taxpayer information by a Welsh Revenue Authority official unless that disclosure is expressly permitted by section 18 of the Act. 

Protected taxpayer information is defined in the Act as information relating to a person, which will enable them to be identified, and information that was acquired by the WRA or a delegated body. Disclosure is a serious matter and a breach of this requirement is a criminal offence. Section 18(1) of the Act sets out a list of gateways, however, under which it is permissible to disclose protected taxpayer information. At present, this section does not provide a gateway for the disclosure of protected taxpayer information to either Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs or to Revenue Scotland, where such a disclosure is simply in connection with a function of these respective bodies or in connection with the function of the Welsh Revenue Authority. The purpose of the amendments I'm laying today is to provide relevant WRA officials with such a gateway to discuss protective taxpayer information with HMRC and with Revenue Scotland.

The regulations will ensure consistency with HMRC, which itself will have a legal gateway to share information with the Welsh Revenue Authority in April 2018. The reason for doing all of this, Dirprwy Lywydd, is that the Welsh Revenue Authority I believe should be able to do the same as HMRC is able to do to support compliance on devolved taxes and their equivalent in order to deter avoidance and evasion. Again, for the purposes of compliance in relation to devolved taxes, the Welsh Revenue Authority is currently discussing a reciprocal arrangement with Revenue Scotland for the purposes of information sharing with them. That's the basis on which I hope Members will support these matters this afternoon.