I very much welcome the statement, and I'm really pleased to see acceptance of national non-domestic rates as an important part of local government income. Of course, pre NNDR, rates were paid by businesses to the local council. Why does the Minister not want to return business rates to local authorities?

I am pleased that the Welsh Government supports more regular revaluations. This should stop the big rises and falls in rateable values that we have seen previously. Business rates have one great advantage over other business taxes in that they are difficult to avoid. You can't hide the building, you can't take the building abroad, and you can't do all the clever things that they do to avoid corporation tax.

While I welcome consideration of a land value tax, does the Minister accept that such a tax could lead to some areas of high land value with no shops? I'm thinking of areas within your own constituency that have very high values down on the Gower peninsula, and the land value is so high that it may well have been that shops could not afford it. 

And finally, does the Minister accept that the top priority has got to be that whatever is done brings exactly the same amount of money as we have now, because local government needs it?