Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:46 pm on 30 January 2018.
You didn't disappoint, Mick, no. Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary for bringing this motion here today and these regulations? I'm pleased that Jane Hutt mentioned the charter for the Welsh Revenue Authority. It seems a while back now that I first proposed one of the amendments that has led to the creation of the charter. First there was the dream, now there is the reality. It's good to see that that is suited to the Welsh context as well; it's not just simply been a carbon copy of the HMRC charter, which, whilst it serves them okay, we didn't feel in the committee was suitable for the Welsh context.
This is, in many ways, the final chapter of this long process that Government and the Finance Committee have been involved in. It seems like forever, probably a couple of years now—and longer, going back into the last Assembly. I'm pleased that we've finally got to the setting of the rates and bands. The Cabinet Secretary will recall that there were calls from some quarters during the finance process—well, mainly from me and Mark Reckless—for the rates and the bands to be clearer on the face of the Bill. Well, the Welsh Government didn't agree with that, and that's the past now. We did come to the compromise of having those rates and bands revealed towards the end of the process, and we do now have these regulations before us, so that's to be welcomed.
Many of the points that I was going to ask have been covered, but can I just ask the Cabinet Secretary, in terms of the process now, running up to the switching on of the Welsh taxes on 1 April—? I believe you met with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury last week, and, as I understand it, the new Welsh taxes cannot be finally switched on until the UK taxes are switched off, for obvious reasons. I believe that requires an Order in Westminster. Can you clarify as to how that process is going to work?
And, from your discussions with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, are you confident—? Well, first of all, are you getting sufficient co-operation from the officials in Westminster, and are you confident that the process is going to be smooth enough so that, overnight, or whenever it is—I think it's overnight, running into 1 April—the new landfill disposals tax and land transaction tax in Wales, the first taxes in 800 years or however long it is, will come into being as originally envisaged?