The United Kingdom’s fiscal framework, including a flawed set of rules, is incentivising bad policy decisions shaped by short-termism and fictional spending plans – and does little to promote fiscal sustainability.

This report warns that successive governments have gamed their fiscal rules: claiming to be adhering to fiscal discipline while frequently announcing short-term giveaways matched by longer-term tax rises or spending cuts that often do not materialise.

The report sets out why the current approach is no longer working – and provides a guide for this or future governments to reform the framework to enable them to make better choices. It calls on Chancellors to set out a comprehensive fiscal strategy – working out the levels of taxation, expenditure and debt that are consistent with meeting government’s overarching objectives – from which a set of rules can follow.