All public bodies are obliged to have ‘due regard’ to the impact of their policies on equality.

The Women’s Budget Group has welcomed the recommendation from the Treasury Select Committee that the next budget should include ‘quantitative analysis of the equalities impact of individual tax and welfare measures in all cases where data are available’.

The Committee’s report on the 2018 Budget said that while there has been ‘some improvement in the provision of equalities and gender impact assessments in this Budget, but they fall well short of the “robust [ … ] assessments of future Budgets, including the individual tax and welfare measures contained within them” that the Committee recommended at the last Budget.