5. The Landfill Disposals Tax (Wales) Act 2017 (Site Restoration Relief) (Amendment) Regulations 2018

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:14 pm on 9 October 2018.

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Photo of Mark Reckless Mark Reckless Conservative 3:14, 9 October 2018

I recall at committee stage discussing with the Cabinet Secretary when he'd be bringing forward regulations and the extent to which these would turn on questions of detail or be more substantive. I'm not quite sure which this falls into, but I've got a couple of questions for him. Firstly, has the Welsh Revenue Authority been disapplying or giving a relief in terms of tax to date in the circumstances you fear may be addressed by this?

And, secondly, in these regulations, we're replacing section 29(1)(a), the reference, 'consisting entirely of qualifying material'. That is changing to:

'(i) consisting entirely of qualifying material, or

'(ii) consisting entirely of top-soil'.

And I just wondered, we have in Schedule 1 already the list of qualifying material and soil is part of that. I mean, what is the problem? It says at 1, 'rocks and soil', and there's a condition: it must be naturally occurring. Is the issue as to whether it's naturally occurring, or is this being read as rocks and soil, and therefore soil isn't allowable unless there are also some rocks in it?

Could the Cabinet Secretary also clarify whether he is suggesting that topsoil is something different from soil? And I know he's got an allotment in Pontcanna and is maybe more knowledgeable on these matters of soil than I, but is it suggested that the soil and topsoil are separate categories—the thing—as opposed to the topsoil being covered by the meaning 'soil'? And if the latter, is this really a necessary regulation to bring forward?

Also, just to ask him finally, when he has 'consisting entirely of qualifying material' or 'consisting entirely of top-soil', if that just said, 'consisting of qualifying material or top-soil'—a statutory interpretation, I understand, would allow an inclusive meaning of that and it wouldn't matter if it were both of them. But the way he's written it, 'consisting entirely of qualifying material' on both of them, doesn't that suggest that a mix of qualifying material and topsoil would not be allowable under these new regulations?