For the past five years, in response to a request from the Treasury Committee in 2010, the Government has been publishing an analysis of how its policy decisions in each Budget and Autumn Statement affect households, and the relative impact on their income.
Andrew Tyrie stated that this has been welcome, and ended decades of Treasury refusal to publish comprehensive distributional analysis. However the Treasury has since replaced the analysis, which now says nothing about the impact of the Budget on household incomes.
Andrew Tyrie MP said:
“The Chancellor described the new Treasury work in March as “the most comprehensive and robust assessment available of how the decisions we have made have affected families.” The Chancellor was right.
“The Chancellor assured the Committee in April 2014 that the Treasury would continue to produce the analysis in the same form.
“However, in the Summer Budget in July the Treasury abandoned its methodology of the past five years and replaced it with another one. This may provide other useful information but, unlike the previous analysis, it says nothing about the impact of the Budget on household incomes.
“When he gave evidence to the Committee after the Summer Budget, I asked the Chancellor to provide “the distributional analysis that you did for the last Budget, applied to this Budget”. In response, the Treasury has subsequently published a draft distributional analysis. But this does not provide all the necessary information. So I have written to the Chancellor asking for it.
“As yet, the Committee has not heard any good reason why Parliament should not see the analysis on the same basis as before.”
