Business

Fun and f-words, but no fireworks or pizazz in Chancellor's Budget

YOU'RE HAVING A LAUGH: Philip Hammond peppered his Budget speech with humour
YOU'RE HAVING A LAUGH: Philip Hammond peppered his Budget speech with humour YOU'RE HAVING A LAUGH: Philip Hammond peppered his Budget speech with humour

LAUGHTER provides a powerful cathartic cleansing. It's also an important mechanism for releasing stress and tension.

And so it was for Philip Hammond yesterday. For this under-pressure Chancellor, with even his allies waiting for him to fail, peppered his Budget statement with gags to deflect from the shadows cast not only over the economy, but himself.

There was no pizazz but equally no slips ups nor rabbits from the hat from 'spreadsheet Phil', though whether his anodyne 62-minute statement is enough to launch a synchronised recovery or keep him in a job as Brexit looms remains debatable.

This wasn't so much a Budget for the here and now, but for the future (he actually uttered that f-word 33 times), though he was cautious throughout and was careful not to drop the ball (remember his monumental gaff around national insurance for self-employed workers last time, which led to an embarrassing and unprecedented climb-down?).

The Chancellor’s speech said nothing about a corporation tax reduction in Northern Ireland, and in the absence of devolution it's impossible to see the planned reduction to 12.5 per cent from next April now happening (a Treasury precondition is that a restored Executive must first establish that its finances are on a sustainable footing and could afford the reduction in the block grant).

Northern Ireland, in fairness, was handed another decent slice of extra cash towards capital spending, though with the lights off at Stormont, no-one is there to write the cheques.

Small businesses here will benefit from a range of business tax initiatives (SMEs are thrilled he didn't drop the £85,000 VAT threshold to £75,000 as many were predicting).

And maintaining zero stamp duty on house purchases for first time buyers, keeping the pennies off booze and fuel, and allowing already squeezed workers to now earn £11,850 before paying tax were all cheered as much in Banbridge and Benburb as in Basildon or Basingstoke.

But there were missed opportunities around lowering an air passenger duty which penalises domestic travellers and looking at the VAT tax on tourism, given that the rate in Northern Ireland is more than twice that of the Republic.

A review on both had been promised in the DUP deal with the Conservatives in June, with an update due to have been provided by Mr Hammond. Well, he simply put it on the long finger to his next Budget in a year's time (let's file that under 'future' too).

In fairness to Hammond, he was caught between a rock and a hard place yesterday. It was largely impossible for him to formulate a big and bold narrative given that Brexit is the elephant in the room and knocks everything else into the shade right now.

Economic measures can't work in isolation from it, and although he's set aside £3 billion of taxpayers’ money to spent on preparing to leave the UK, his opponents were quick to point out that that is more than the emergency cash being given to the NHS.

Overall there was was no rabbit plucked from the Chancellor’s hat yesterday - just perhaps a mounting Brexit squeeze which is leaving people poorer and starving public services of much-needed funds. And despite Mr Hammond's attempts at humour, that's no joke.