Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:30 pm on 17 April 2018.
Thank you, Michelle, and, again, thank you for the broad welcome there. On the HMRC issues, we are aware—everybody's aware because they've been made quite public—of some of the early implementation problems there have been, both in terms of the tax credits, but also their offer, their parallel offer, in England. However, they are overcoming those, and we've been in discussion with them while we've been discussing at a high level the principle of utilising HMRC as our provider. And we have confidence that, actually, the glitches that they've had will not only be overcome, but that they'll have the machine working smoothly, particularly by the time that we are looking for roll-out, which is 2019-20, and we'll be able to actually watch what is going on in our engagement with them, which is intensive at an official level, to make sure that that is happening.
I will indeed make sure that there is opportunity to come back and report on how discussions with HMRC are going, how the contract is shaping up, because what this Bill will enable us to do is to engage at more than high level, but actually in the detail of the contractual discussions with HMRC. And I will make sure that there are opportunities both for committees but also for Assembly Members generally to find out what is going on with those and to input into them as well.
In terms of external contractors, I'm not convinced that we are in a position, as Welsh Government, as far as I understand, to insist that they make no use of any external contractors. So, for example, if part of the offer are things such as a digital platform, are we going to object if a digital platform is designed by an external contractor and so on? I think, Michelle, you're referring to more fundamental aspects of the delivery of it, but digital gateway to it is part of it as well and things can go wrong with that. I'll take that away and consider it and look at it, but I suspect that most Government agencies use some form of external contracting. What we need to make sure is that the glitches that they've experienced early on are not repeated, and that we have confidence, not only in HMRC taking on the overall contract from Welsh Government, for which we will be paying, but also that any organisations they subcontract to also have our confidence in delivering this very effectively. But thank you for those points.