Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Trefnydd – in the Senedd at 1:42 pm on 25 November 2020.

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Photo of Rebecca Evans Rebecca Evans Labour 1:42, 25 November 2020

Well, as Rhun ap Iorwerth knows, our journey into tax raising in Wales is very much in its infancy. However, we have been able to use the tools at our disposal during the pandemic, and an example would be the way in which we treated the recent announcement on the part of the Chancellor regarding land transaction tax, or stamp duty land tax as it's referred to across the border. By taking a different set of decisions here in Wales, we were able to free up an additional £30 million of funding in order to target that at homelessness, which is a particular concern during the pandemic. So, there have been some things that we've been able to do. We deliberately took the decision not to raise Welsh rates of income tax. If we had done so by 1p, then that would have raised around £200 million. We took the decision not to do that because we made a commitment to the people of Wales at the start of this Senedd that we wouldn't be raising Welsh rates of income tax during that time.