Yesterday in the debate on the Welsh Government's draft budget, I spoke about how the people of Wales are facing multiple crises, unprecedented crises since the advent of devolution, and I agreed with the Welsh Government that this was a difficult budget in a difficult time, and outlined the support that is needed for those who need it most, why the services providing this support must be given the resources that they need to fill those huge holes that exist in the safety net, which has been torn to shreds by the Westminster Tories. 

I set out in my contribution why Welsh Government should feel duty-bound to use all the levers available to it, which was the purpose of our call for it to use the income tax-raising powers it currently has to serve and support the people of Wales during these crises—the cost-of-living crisis, the NHS crisis, the social care crisis, the cost-of-learning crisis, the cost-of-doing-business crisis, the housing crisis, climate crisis—crises that disproportionately affect the most vulnerable of our citizens, and whose effects will scar our communities not just today or tomorrow, but for years to come. Because I, for one, am frankly fed up of hearing Welsh Government Ministers say over and over, 'We'd like to do more but we don't have the money'. If devolution truly is, as famously described by Ron Davies, a process, a journey with no fixed end point, enabling us to make our own decisions and set our own priorities, then calling for the powers we need for Wales to be able to afford to do so is a completely logical step, especially given the need, as our motion describes, to respond to the current cost-of-living crisis and the crisis facing our public services. So, that's the 'why', and in it's an important 'why' because it's not powers for their own sake but the means to make devolution work more effectively, to fund the levels of public expenditure we need.

We've already heard how Wales is something of an anomaly compared to the rest of the UK when it comes to its limited tax powers, and, to quote a recent report by the Institute of Welsh Affairs on this matter, as a nation we are

'in the relatively uncommon position of having little control' over our devolved budget, with limited taxation powers, next to no influence over the block grant from Westminster, as we heard from Luke Fletcher, and exceptionally limited borrowing powers.

And our anomalous situation is also relevant within a wider international context. As a recent Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development study illustrated, the UK possesses one of the most rigidly centralised tax systems in the world—something Mike Hedges alluded to. Every other G7 nation collects more taxes at a local or regional level compared to the UK. For example, devolved or decentralised taxation accounts for 30 per cent of total German tax revenue, 34 per cent in the case of the USA and almost 50 per cent in the case of Canada. This compares to just over 10 per cent of local UK tax revenue that is collected at the devolved level.

We can look to the example of Euskadi, the Basque Country, too, whose devolved Government has extensive powers over personal income taxation, corporate taxation and its own wealth and inheritance and gift tax. This has engendered economic growth in the Basque Country, which has been described as highly inclusive by the Foreign Policy Centre. The region features among the top in Europe, not only in terms of GDP per capita, but crucially, given the current economic context, also in having a low percentage of population at risk of poverty or social exclusion. So, what we're proposing here isn't particularly radical, therefore; rather, it seeks to normalise what is already happening, and happening well elsewhere.

The argument that we can't use tax to fund the spending we need, to create the fairer, more prosperous Wales we all want to see, is patently fairly ridiculous when set in the international context. And with the powers to set all rates and bands, income tax can be a fair and proportionate way to secure the resources we need, to help us overcome the shameful levels of poverty that blight the lives of too many of our citizens, and the dire need for investment in our public services. Westminster has never and never will work for Wales. Devolution is a journey, a journey of discovery that the Westminster way of doing things is not a good model for Wales to follow. If you believe in devolution, if you believe in taking the responsibility of governing seriously, and if you believe in serving the people of Wales, you should vote for our motion.