Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance – in the Senedd at 2:00 pm on 16 May 2018.
I fully accept what the Cabinet Secretary and, indeed, Vikki Howells have said on this, although dereliction is a separate issue in itself, which could be dealt with in other ways other than by a tax. But I'm also concerned about the potential impact of such a tax upon small house builders in rural areas. It's easy to demonise big companies, but there may be a variety of reasons why even small house builders, who can't afford to bank land for long period of time anyway, might feel that they would be affected by this and which would therefore dissuade them from applying for speculative planning permissions. And, given that economic circumstances can sometimes change quite rapidly, this would be an unfortunate development, because if it indeed resulted in fewer speculative proposals at the local development plan preparation stage, the onus would then be on local planning authorities to approach land owners proactively to identify land that is capable of development and which they would like to see developed. Given that local authorities have enough on their plate anyway, this would be another unfortunate consequence. So, I hope that that's another point that the finance Secretary will bear carefully in mind.