Fiscal reforms affecting households, 1997-2001

This government has introduced many tax and benefit reforms that directly affect families, such as changes to income tax, the benefit system and excise duties. This Election Briefing Note reviews these, before assessing how their effect has varied between different groups of the population. Election Briefing Note 4 examines changes to overall living standards, which largely reflect things outside government control, but this Briefing Note looks at the effect of tax and benefit policy in isolation. Another difference from Election Briefing Note 4 is that we are able to assess Labour's full term here.