Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:20 pm on 8 February 2023.
Well, certainly it has been an illuminating, if somewhat dispiriting debate in its conclusion, with the remarks of the Minister, but I'd like to thank all Members who contributed to it. Peter Fox is a reasonable man—I'm not sure that I can say that more broadly, it has to be said—but I think the central point here, Peter, is this: if we have these powers, there's no point having powers if they're incredibly difficult to use. And, at the moment, with devolving rates but not bands, it means we don't really have the ability to use the powers to the full. And that's, really, the reasonable demand. And you can make your case in terms of your aspirations as to how to use them and we'll make ours, but isn't that how democratic accountability is meant to work? And that's, essentially, the core point that my colleague Luke Fletcher was making, that fiscal policy is critical to being a parliament, isn't it? We need to be accountable to the communities that we're meant to serve and, at the moment, without these full powers, we're not able to do that.
I agree with Mike—I should have taken an intervention now, Mike; I apologise. You referred to asymmetric devolution, and let's remember that the policy that we are seeking to get a Labour Government to adopt here was a Labour proposal. Through the Vow, through the Smith commission, this was a Labour policy, a Labour proposal, and yet here in Wales, with the one Government that the Labour Party runs, they're opposing it. I think you're right, Mike, as well, that there's a wider agenda. We've got to look at dividend income, income from savings, et cetera. I think we've got to look at capital gains tax as well to make sure that, when you devolve the powers and use them, there aren't actually loopholes. I'll be kind like you and talk about tax avoidance, rather than anything else. So, let's look at that and let's look at the interrelationship with national insurance as well, as the Scottish Government are calling for.
Sioned Williams is right that, in the Basque Country, we see more devolution there of tax powers. In fact, even the provincial councils of Gipuzkoa and Bizkaia arguably have more formal tax powers than we have here. So, certainly we're outside of the mainstream, aren't we? Even now, even after 20 years and more of devolution in this hugely centralised UK state. And that's the core of this motion, to try to liberate ourselves from that.
I'd like to say that Delyth Jewell reminded us that we need to break this negative right-wing narrative around tax and public expenditure. The Labour leadership at Westminster and more broadly is falling into a trap here, I think, in the kind of language that it's using, because ultimately, instead of talking just about tax burdens, we need to talk about tax levers, about tax tools and tax instruments, because taxation ultimately, revenue, is the means by which we actually generate the basis for public expenditure, to do everything that we do in this place for the people that we represent, and we should make that positive case.
That's why we should have the powers, and that's why I was so disappointed by the response of the Government—a Government that has talked about radical federalism. There is nothing in the policy that the Minister has announced, rejecting this, that you could describe as either 'federalist' or 'radical'. There are two adjectives that I can apply to what I hear from the Minister, which are 'conservative' and 'unionist'. Where is the vision for the future—? [Interruption.] Well, you'll be voting with the Conservatives on this motion, won't you, in rejecting our position? Because you do not essentially accept the case that we have set out, that unless we actually have full devolution, we are not going to be able to meet the challenge that we have set ourselves in creating the kind of decent society—. And I don't see it; where is the radicalism in your constitutional vision for Wales, based on what the finance Minister has said to us?