The Finance Committee, and many stakeholders, strongly believed that including a retrospective review that was robust was good practice, and would be something that would help to ensure that the objectives of the legislation were delivered in accordance with expectation, and also that there is value for money when it comes to what is delivered. Now, that of course is something that the Finance Committee has recommended regularly in the past, certainly when I was Chair of the committee—that there should be a review of this kind in all Bills, as common practice.

But in this area specifically, as the devolution of taxation is a relatively new development in Wales, and also as the Welsh taxation system matures, it's even more important that the Senedd can be confident that any developments are proportionate and comply with parliamentary good practice and the best democratic principles. That's why I'm supporting amendments 8 and 9, which propose that we should go further than the Minister has committed to, namely that the Senedd must do more work in terms of oversight of taxation powers.

Now, as this is an enabling Bill, with powers delegated to the Minister, it will be crucial to assess how the legislation operates on a practical level, as well as its impact on taxpayers and devolved taxes. There is consensus, I think, around the need to review the Act after four years, and that in turn would feed into the consideration as to whether the legislation should be extended to five years, or beyond five years. But as the committee suggests, and as we've already heard, there should be an initial statutory review of the Bill two years after Royal Assent, in order to scrutinise the conclusion of that review before the end of the sixth Senedd, namely this Senedd term. So, we will be supporting amendments 8 and 9 for those reasons.

Now, my amendments in this group, amendments 3 and 4, respond to a recommendation in the Stage 1 report of the Finance Committee. The committee suggested that the Bill be amended to note that the statutory review of the implementation and impact of the legislation by the Welsh Government would include assessments of the nature and effectiveness of any regulations made under section 1(1) of the Act; that it assesses the impact of the Act on taxpayers and on devolved taxes; that it also assesses the appropriateness of the powers to make regulations provided to Welsh Ministers under the Act; and, most importantly in the context of this group of amendments, that this review would also assess alternative legislative approaches to making changes to the Welsh tax Acts and the regulations made under those—in other words, that the review would go further and would look at the broader legislative picture in this area.

My hope in that regard is that looking at alternative legislative mechanisms in this area will promote and contribute to the debate on how the Senedd creates its annual budget and how, in that context, Ministers are empowered by the Senedd to operate in the area of taxation. With the proposed review coming four years after the implementation of the legislation, I would very much hope that all of that broader discussion would have matured a great a deal by then and that the review would be very timely and be an opportunity to air these issues in a very different context to the one we currently face.

My second amendment, amendment 4, calls on Welsh Ministers to consult the Senedd, and any such person that they consider appropriate as part of that process. It's important in my view that a broad range of voices and views are heard as part of the review, particularly that we, as parliamentarians who've created the Act, if it comes into force, have the opportunity to have an input into the review. So, I would encourage my fellow Members of the Senedd to support amendments 3 and 4 in particular.