I thank the Member for what he said, particularly towards the end of his contribution. I absolutely share his anxiety that we design the way in which powers can be drawn down to Wales for these new purposes—that it is carried out in a way that has a clear distinction between the responsibilities that are properly conducted by the UK Government and then the responsibilities of this National Assembly. I hope that when Members see the schematic that we published today, which sets out how this will operate, Members will see that we have succeeded in reaching an agreement with the Treasury in which the Treasury will focus on those matters that I think are legitimate for the UK Government.

I think it's fair for them to want to be convinced that the tax being proposed lies squarely within devolved competence. I think it's fair for them to be sure that we are not proposing something that would gather money in Wales but would have an impact on revenue raising that they are relying upon on a UK-wide basis, for example. But when the power is transferred to the National Assembly, it's then for this Assembly to scrutinise the use of those powers. It's for this Assembly to see whether it believes that any ideas that a Welsh Government comes forward with for legislation stand up to the test of scrutiny, and the detailed questions really do belong to that part of the process. There is no point at all in the Welsh Government committing an enormous amount of time and resources to designing the detail of a tax proposal until we know that the power to bring that tax forward lies in the hands of the National Assembly for Wales.

On the points the Member raised on the actual announcement today, which is of a vacant land tax to be taken forward, of course nobody would wish to design a tax that was formed in the wrong way, and there are important issues that would need to be navigated to make sure that a vacant land tax captured land that is vacant when no effort is being made to bring it into purposeful use, and not, of course, to try to penalise people who are working hard to make use of the permissions that have been granted, or the designations that have been laid out, and are frustrated in being able to do so for reasons that are sometimes beyond their own control. You design the criteria for how land is registered as vacant on the register to capture those things that you want to capture and to make sure that those that are not the object of this tax are excluded from it.

How much would the tax raise? It's too early, of course, to give a proper answer to that question. In the Republic of Ireland a tax is levied at 3 per cent on the value of the land in the first year, rising to 7 per cent of the value of the land in a second year in which it is not being used productively. The republic believe that that would be at least sufficient to cover the costs of the new system, where any money that is left over is dedicated for regeneration purposes.

As to a local tourism tax, as I said in my statement, I will be working with my colleague ministerially responsible for this matter to take the conversation forward. The whole point of a tourism tax, despite the distortion of the idea by some Members in this Chamber, has always been to find better ways of investing in tourism, so that we draw more people to be part of the tourism industry here in Wales. If we are to take forward the idea on the basis of local discretion, it would be clearly on the basis that money raised in that way is used to respond to the demands that tourists rightly make for proper facilities and for services on the ground, and to make those services even better so that people who come to Wales want to visit here many times again in the future.