Diolch, Llywydd. We first debated the case for new taxes in 2017, beginning a national discussion about how new tax powers could provide opportunities to help us realise our ambitions for Wales. More than four years later, those opportunities are still not available to us.

The Wales Act 2014 allows for the devolution of new and existing UK taxes, but gives scant detail on how that process would work. The Welsh and UK Governments worked together to carefully design a process that would enable the introduction of new devolved taxes, respecting the interests of both Governments. There are two distinct phases of the process. The first phase is to devolve the powers. This requires a proposal to be developed, and consulted upon, before being presented to both the UK Parliament and this Senedd for the agreement to devolve and receive the powers. The second phase is for the Welsh Government to bring forward the detailed policy and legislative proposals to this Senedd to introduce the new tax.

We identified a vacant land tax as the first new tax we would seek competence for using the agreed inter-governmental process. We chose a vacant land tax because it can play a key role in helping deliver on our commitments to provide more housing, and support the regeneration of our towns and communities. We also chose a vacant land tax because we believe the case for devolution was clear and straightforward, and that this would allow us to test and refine the process for devolving further taxes.