Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance – in the Senedd at 1:50 pm on 6 December 2017.
Well, I thank Nick Ramsay for that. He is right to say that the proposals we have brought forward in non-domestic LTT mean that businesses with premises below £1 million will have less to pay in Wales than anywhere else in the United Kingdom, and that is paid for by businesses at the very top end of the market having to pay a little more. Ninety per cent of businesses in Wales will pay less in Wales than they have in the past or pay no more. I've always heard it said in this Chamber that small and medium-sized enterprises are the lifeblood of the Welsh economy. That's where jobs are created, that's where the businesses of the future are created, and a reduction in costs for those businesses matters more to them, in the period in which they are establishing themselves and seeking to expand, I believe, than the marginal increase that there will be for transactions of very high value indeed. Now, I'm not saying that there isn't an impact, because costs go up and that is an impact. Do I think that the marginal additional sum in LTT will be the determining factor in business deals of many, many millions of pounds, with many, many far bigger issues at stake? No, I don't. The analysis that we've carried out, and Bangor's independent scrutiny of that analysis, bears that out. We think there will be more transactions in Wales as a result of the changes that we have introduced, and that that will be good for the Welsh economy.