Part of 11. 9. Debate: Stage 3 of the Land Transaction Tax and Anti-avoidance of Devolved Taxes (Wales) Bill – in the Senedd at 4:38 pm on 28 March 2017.
Nick Ramsay
Conservative
4:38,
28 March 2017
I’m all for creativity, but there’s a difference between creativity and destabilisation. I think that whilst the devolution of taxation does allow this Assembly and Welsh Government to do things differently here, and over time we would expect that to happen, if you’re following the maxim that in the first instance the system and the regime here should mirror as closely as possible that across the border to ensure stability and a smooth transition, then I think it would be unwise to make this type of change at this point in time. Steffan Lewis, you wish to give local authorities that ability to make representations. Of course, local authorities can make representations to the Welsh Government. I think they probably make many representations to Welsh Government that it often doesn’t want to hear. So, they have that ability at the moment. I’m not entirely clear what the full reason is behind this. I must say I’m a little bit uneasy when you say that there may be local conditions in any local authority area that would see the need to specifically vary the upper rates of this charge. You weren’t entirely clear about that in our contribution. As things stand at the moment, I’m afraid to say we’re not able to support this, but I look forward to hearing what the Cabinet Secretary has to say in response.
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