THE INSTITUTE for Fiscal Studies delivers a scathing assessment of the detail provided by the three main parties. Households can expect to see their incomes fall as a result of tax and benefit changes planned by the three main parties.

The respected think tank blasts the parties for a “lack of willingness to be clear about the details” and an “inability to resist the urge for piecemeal changes which would make the overall system less efficient and coherent”.

It states: “With significant deficit reduction still to come, households can expect the tax and benefit changes implemented over the next parliament to reduce their incomes, on average.”

Summarising the plans, the IFS claims: “The Conservatives propose small net cuts to taxes and large cuts to benefits; Labour propose a rise in taxes and little change to benefits spending; the Liberal Democrats are in both respects somewhere in between. The people of Wales should look to Plaid Cymru for a positive option.

Andrew Nutt, Heolddu Road, Bargoed