The chancellor must be honest about the budget’s implications | Letters

A key component of every budget is the distributional analysis, which shows how the chancellor's spending decisions will affect households across the income spectrum. However, despite its obvious importance, the government removed this analysis from last year's emergency summer budget. We believe this is a serious mistake.

It is a vital function of government to clearly detail the implications of its policies on the finances of different income groups. Moreover, in order to tackle poverty, inequality, and other social ills, it is important that government publishes its most robust data to provide an accurate account of the scale of these problems. This includes data on whether government policies effectively alleviate or exacerbate them.