I'd like to thank the Minister for the meeting last Friday to discuss our reports and recommendations. I very much welcome her constructive approach. 

I'll begin with our views on the general principles. As a committee, we fully support the principle that Ministers need the ability to respond to external events to protect Welsh revenues raised through devolved taxes. However, much of our deliberations has been centred around the appropriateness of delegating a regulatory-making power to Ministers to achieve this objective, as it results in less scrutiny and surrenders the Senedd's legislative role.

The evidence we received focused on the key principles that tax law should be set out in primary legislation, should be subject to detailed consideration and debate, and should provide certainty for taxpayers. And while the Minister has been keen to point out that the Senedd has previously granted powers to Ministers to amend tax legislation through regulations, that does not in itself justify the approach proposed in the Bill before us in this Senedd. We are disappointed that the Welsh Government has not given serious consideration to developing alternative ways of amending devolved tax legislation at pace. In particular, the Minister could have pursued a mechanism for urgent changes to the law to be made on a temporary or provisional basis by a resolution of the Senedd, with subsequent primary legislation providing permanent effect. Such an approach would allow the Ministers to respond quickly to protect tax revenues and ensure an equitable balance of control between the Senedd and the Welsh Government. This would also have been useful preparatory work for the future introduction of a legislative budget process. Whilst the Minister considers that a legislative budget process is disproportionate at this time, we need assurances that work to develop it will not be delayed if this Bill progresses, and we believe further devolved taxes should be designed with a legislative budget process in mind.

We did not reach a unanimous decision, with three of our four Members supporting the Bill's general principles. Peter Fox did not support the Bill progressing beyond Stage 1, and I'm sure he'll outline his reasons for this in his contribution. Some of us shared Peter's concerns but, on balance, we concluded that these concerns did not warrant the committee recommending that the Bill should fall at this stage. Nevertheless, we identified a number of areas where improvements should be made to the Bill. Firstly, we found it challenging to form conclusions on the four proposed purpose tests. The Minister told us that the scope of the power is deliberately constrained and set out with absolute clarity the circumstances in which it would be used. However, serious concerns were raised with us about the breadth of aspects of the power, and we were advised that it could be open to abuse. 

The Bill will allow the Welsh Ministers to amend any provision of the Welsh tax Acts other than the provisions relating to the establishment of the Welsh Revenue Authority and regulations amending tax rates and bands of devolved taxes. During our scrutiny, we expected the Minister to provide specific examples to demonstrate how the power could be used to modify the Welsh tax Acts in practice. However, we were told it was not feasible to anticipate every future circumstance that may give rise to an amendment. This provided us with little opportunity for adequate scrutiny, and so we pressed again for examples to inform today's debate. I'm pleased that the Minister has now provided examples, and note that she is now considering excluding Part 9 of the Tax Collection and Management (Wales) Act 2016 from the scope of the Bill. This information would have been helpful at the outset to enable proper scrutiny, but we are where we are. 

The key consideration has been the provision in section 2 of the Bill permitting Ministers to make regulations with retrospective effect. Witnesses voiced concerns that this undermines a fundamental principle that the law should be certain. While we accept that the Welsh Government may need to mitigate the risks to public funds, great care and a compelling case is required to legislate retrospectively. To protect taxpayers, we recommend that the ability to make regulations with retrospective effect is limited on the face of the Bill for three of the four purposes. I note the Minister's intentions to bring forward the amendments limiting the ability to legislate retrospectively and look forward to seeing the detail of her proposals.

I now want to move on to the Senedd's approval of regulations made under the Bill. This includes the made affirmative procedure, subject to the Senedd's approval within a maximum period of 60 days. We will expect the Welsh Government to put forward a compelling case to justify the need to dispense with prior scrutiny and approval, especially in the case of regulations with retrospective effect. Given our concerns surrounding the broad nature of the power sought and the ability to change Welsh tax laws retrospectively, we urge the Minister to strengthen the approval process by including a minimum time period for scrutiny of any regulations by the Senedd.

We also considered the financial implications of the Bill and we were disappointed with the lack of financial information presented. With no direct costs identified and indirect costs described by the Minister as nebulous, we were unable to draw any meaningful conclusions on the financial impact of this legislation. We will expect any future regulations to be accompanied by a full and robust regulatory impact assessment.

Finally, we welcome the Minister's willingness to review the legislation. We recommend that the provisions in the Bill be reviewed after an initial two-year period and a periodic review every five years. An early review is especially important given the limited information we have to be able to scrutinise and uncertainties around how the power in the Bill could be used. It will also assist the Senedd to maintain focus on whether this development in our tax law is appropriate.

Llywydd, Wales waited 800 years for powers to raise taxes. This Chamber should not give those powers away without proper thought and consideration.