Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Trefnydd – in the Senedd at 1:41 pm on 3 April 2019.
I resisted the temptation to say it was a momentous week in Welsh taxation because we tend to say that during every set of questions with all the changes that have been happening with devolved taxation over the last months and, indeed, the preparations over longer. When he was the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, the First Minister said that he was sceptical about the extent to which taxation issues had an effect on behaviour, and he said,
'I don't take the economic view of mankind that people are always calculating down to the last penny whether they want to be in one place or another'.
Yet, returning to the FSB's report, which I'm glad you've had sight of, that states that some solicitors dealing with land transaction tax are already saying that their clients are considering buying property close to the border to avoid paying higher property taxes in Wales. In fact, one of their key findings was that concerns continue to be expressed about the potential for the different rates between land transaction tax and UK stamp duty land tax, and the effect of that influencing taxpayer behaviour and the potential for distortion. I appreciate these are still early days and that it was only some solicitors who said that, but nonetheless there's clearly an area here that needs to be monitored by the Welsh Government. Do you think that we are doing enough to monitor potential distortions along the border area, and what preparations are you making to make sure that, going forward, the property market in Wales is stable?