The Land Transaction Tax

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:08 pm on 15 September 2021.

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Photo of Rebecca Evans Rebecca Evans Labour 2:08, 15 September 2021

I think that the situation that Mark Isherwood has described does show that there are many factors at play here in terms of people's motivations to buy properties. We've taken the deliberate decision to try and increase the higher rate of land transaction tax, because we're very interested in supporting individuals in communities to be able to buy their home to live in. That's our primary concern in that regard, although we do understand the importance of tourism to many communities in Wales. It's a very difficult balance, but we're very keen to ensure that people are able to find affordable housing to live in in their own communities. Part of that's about using tax. I think that it's possible, sometimes, to overestimate the impact that land transaction tax will have on behaviour; it's fundamentally a revenue-raising tax, of course. But there are several items at play here. It's important that we consider planning. It's important that we consider how much more we can invest in social housing. It's important that we consider how we can work with residential landlords and others to leverage investment into this particular agenda. So, there are many, many aspects here. It's partly about supply of housing, partly about planning, but it's also about how we use the other tools at our disposal. No one of these is going to solve this problem on its own.