Now, during the recent debate on the further devolution of income tax powers to Wales, the finance Minister mentioned in her response that understanding the behavioural changes is key to developing a maturing Welsh tax policy agenda, and I agree with that, of course; Plaid Cymru agrees with that. It is an important factor to look at these things through a Welsh-specific context. But it is apparent that the evidence base is lacking. Indeed, the report from the Finance Committee on the draft budget expressed disappointment that the Welsh Government hasn't undertaken a comprehensive analysis of the impact of behavioural changes that would arise from a change in policy. Now, the Minister referred to the Swiss study, of course, of behavioural change, which has been built in to the Welsh Government's ready reckoner, and we believe maybe that that is the closest available proxy for Wales. But I'm sure you do agree that it isn't the best that it could be, and certainly it doesn't reflect the particularities of the Welsh tax base and, therefore, a tailored Welsh-specific piece of work to feed directly into future Government decisions on this is now imperative. So, I want to understand from the Minister exactly how that will now proceed and for us to understand, or to be reassured, that we won't be here back here again, as I said earlier, asking the same questions and listening to the same non-answers.

Now, Wales has possessed the power to vary the levels of income tax. It's never been used. Consistently, we've maintained the same rates as have been set by the UK Government for England and Northern Ireland. It's interesting, though, the First Minister did, in response to some of the decisions made by the Truss administration, suggest that might be a scenario where we could and maybe should look at varying the rate of income tax in Wales. But, of course, even then, that evidence base wouldn't be there, so are you suggesting that, if the First Minister thinks it needs doing, we can do it without an evidence base? Is it one rule for the Welsh Government and another one for Plaid Cymru? Because, surely we need to get on with doing that work, so that when the Government feels they need to act in that way, then they're able to do so.

Now, the fact that 85 per cent, or more even, of Welsh taxpayers are on the basic rate has been cited as a reason not to adjust the Welsh rates of income tax, but, as I said—and I fully sympathise with that difficulty—we have put forward here our case for allowing Wales to have the same powers as Scotland in terms of changing and setting our own income tax bands, so that we can more forensically target a variation in the rate of income tax.

Now, my fear is that the debate really isn't happening to the degree that it should be and grappling with some of these complexities to the extent that it should be. There is a consensus, if you look at the Wales Governance Centre, the Institute for Fiscal Studies and others. These are questions that need to be addressed, and the Welsh Government hasn't sufficiently, I believe, responded to that or to the challenge that we have set in needing to step up to have that discussion properly, and I hope, if anything, that our interventions over the last few weeks and months will at least lead to that. Diolch.