3. Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance: Tax Policy Work Plan 2018, including New Taxes

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:32 pm on 13 February 2018.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 3:32, 13 February 2018

Well, Llywydd, I thank Mike Hedges, both for his strong consistent support for the approach we've taken in the two taxes that will come into being on 1 April, but also for what he said this afternoon. Tourism taxes are normal around the world. We know there's a growing interest in them across our border, in both Birmingham and Bath, and what I've said this afternoon—as I've tried to make clear—we are not turning our back on this idea, we're trying to take it forward in the most suitable way for Wales.

I have a feeling that the Member is right that a plastics tax is coming. There were 125 million single-use cups thrown away in Wales last year. One hundred and twenty five million of them in Wales alone. This is a problem that is ripe for Governments to grapple, and the public, as ever, are ahead of us on this. They expect action to be taken. If action is not taken at the UK level in the way that we hope, and in some ways would prefer, then I certainly would return to the idea here in Wales, and we'll do the work in the meantime to allow us to do that. I believe that testing the system with a vacant land tax will make it easier to be able to take other ideas, sometimes more significant ideas, around that track in the future. 

As far as vacant land tax is concerned, he's quite right. I think it was Mark Twain who replied to somebody who'd asked him for advice on where he could invest his money, and said, 'Buy land, they're not making it anymore.' And it is an area in which we have to do more to make the very best use of the resource we've got. Land banking does happen in order to prevent somebody else from making good and productive use of that land. And there are people who, in a speculative way, try and get permissions for land to be used for particular purposes. The effort that the public has made in giving those permissions allows the value of that land to rise. The person who sits on it has done nothing at all by their own efforts for that to happen, and they hope that they will simply make a windfall profit in which they take all the benefits and the public has borne all the costs. And a vacant land tax is one potential way in which you could make that prospect less attractive.