I thank Nick Ramsay for his speech and the Chair for his introduction. I'm very pleased that we had this report as a Finance Committee, and I found it very valuable taking the evidence and considering and interrogating the witnesses that we had. Like Nick Ramsay, I'd actually like to thank Alun Davies as well for pushing this idea. It's not that often I agree with Alun on matters, but I think at least in principle and in theory I found his points compelling and persuasive around a legislative budget process.

One challenge I faced is that, although I've sat on budget or audit committees in a police authority and a council, and done some budget work in a private context, many of my assumptions about a budget and what it is, or what a legislative budget process would be, have been influenced by my past membership of the House of Commons and assuming that how they do things there is somehow normal. I think this process, and looking at countries—Scotland, but also international examples—has helped me understand better, from a bottom-up, principle basis, what is a budget Bill, what is a finance Bill, what are the different ways of doing this, and, in particular, how unusual Westminster is in its approach.

So, overall, I find the arguments for passing a law for tax persuasive. I don't know how much that's because I'm used to the finance Bill process in the Commons, and having that basis where actually you have an annual finance Bill for taxes and a proper degree of scrutiny. That legislative annual process strikes me as working well, but then, on the spending side, the Westminster comparison is much less encouraging, and a Parliament that came into being to control spending gave up that power in the 1930s, and there are no votes or scrutiny, really, at all in that Westminster process. There are three estimates days, which used to be about what departmental estimates were and scrutinising and approving them, but, from about the 1930s onwards, they became for select committees—well, they stopped happening and then were select committee report things instead. So, I don't think we've anything, really, to learn from the Westminster process on spending, and I think clearly on that side the process that we have is (a) better, and (b) has improved during my time in the Assembly and now Senedd. I think there is a greater degree of detail that we get from Ministers, and I do appreciate that.

And I think there's a balance to be struck, because I think a Government and Ministers are going to be wanting to show what they're doing well and telling people about extra money they're getting and selling a good news story, and, to the extent that they're advocates for that in the budget process, I find that a little challenging, because also I think we rely on Ministers to set out and explain through their public comments—those to committees, but also the documentation they give—what's actually happening to the budget in an objective sense to allow people to make comparisons and to interrogate it. And I think there's a degree of tension between that sort of advocacy of a particular approach and helping people understand what's going on with what is often a very complex set of policy interactions. 

The Government reply said that the current process

'provides for the Senedd to propose amendments following the laying of the Draft Budget that is equivalent to the legislative process for the Scottish Budget' and I'd appreciate, if the Chair comes back at the end, his comments on that. Does he agree with that statement? Because I'd understood when we were doing this we were looking for a legislative process, and that's what we saw the Scottish one as, but it seems to me almost that the Government's telling us we've got that already, which I don't think was the understanding of the committee. Similarly, the Chair mentioned a budget Bill or a finance Bill—conceptually, couldn't it be both, whether separate or combined? We don't need just one or the other, do we?

I was then listening to Nick Ramsay and what he was saying and, while I think there are strong theoretical arguments for a legislature, a parliament, to have a legislative process for a budget, I'm myself not convinced that the degree of tax-raising powers that we have are yet sufficient to justify it, and in principle I'm against having those tax-raising powers without the referendum that was the promise, let alone more. So, for that reason, I hold back from joining the charge to push this strongly, albeit it's a report I agreed because I think some of the arguments in principle are well made. 

I also think it's very good that we're going to have this joint body, and with experts as well to help consider this process further. It is very complex, and I think the degree of engagement between Government and the Finance Committee, particularly given other pressures that have been faced, is good and I'd like to thank everyone involved and I hope it's useful to other Members to have this report and this debate. Thank you.