Source · Select Committees · Treasury Committee
Recommendation 19
19
Paragraph: 121
For both social care announcements, the House was asked to vote on new government policies...
Recommendation
For both social care announcements, the House was asked to vote on new government policies that came with significant distributional impacts for households, without the usual distributional analysis that would be provided alongside a Budget. That was highly unsatisfactory. For major announcements such as this the Government should always provide Parliament, in good time, with the information required to enable Parliament to make an informed decision. The Government’s social care plans had been under development for a number of years, and it is not clear why the necessary distributional analyses, both by region and by household, were not provided at the time the House was asked to vote. Nor is it clear why the announcements on social care were made in two distinct stages.
Paragraph Reference:
121
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
I note the Committee’s comments about the publication of distributional analysis of the Health and Social Care Levy. The impact of government policy on households across the income distribution depends on the cumulative impact of policies, meaning it is usually more appropriate for HM Treasury to look at the distributional analysis of government policies in the round alongside fiscal events, rather than publishing analysis in an ad hoc way alongside individual policy announcements. Occasionally, as at the launch of the Building Back Better: Our plan for Health and Social Care package in September 2021, we publish ad-hoc distributional analysis around announcements with substantial fiscal implications. We continue to publish analysis of the impact of policy on households by income decile, alongside fiscal events, including publishing analysis that took account of the impact of the Health and Social Care Levy in October 2021.