The Budget is another wasted chance by a bunch of chancers

Let’s start by being as fair as we can to Jeremy Hunt. His tax break for business investment is a good thing, and it will offset some of the increase in corporation tax. But of more immediate worry for businesses is that the government’s support for their energy bills is still due to end and there is no replacement in sight.

It is also comforting that the UK economy will “only” fall by 0.2% this year, although that is still a terrible performance.

Far more worrying is what the chancellor has decided is his ultimate priority and that is to abolish the lifetime limit on pension savings. This will cost over £1 billion a year and it is of overwhelming interest to the well-paid.

Rather like Liz Truss’s budget which imposed tax rises on everyone earning under £150,000 and tax cuts for everyone earning more than £150,000, this is a tax cut for the rich. A huge tax cut for the rich.

They have the money to spare to ramp up their pensions and now have the ability to do it by almost unlimited amounts, only the annual limit will hold them back and over 40 or 50 years that is no real limit at all.

The chancellor was only supposed to blow the doors off the pensions problem by ending the incentive for people to stop working once their pension pot was full. Even that so-called limit ignored the fact that such people could always ram money into their ISAs and other tax-free savings, but now the sky is the limit.

Millions of the richest will put increasing amounts of money into their pensions and retire very wealthy. The poor who cannot save because they have little spare money will only get a 20% saving on their pension contributions and will retire poor.

This is trickle-down economics disguised as a savings plan. It is also economically foolish in the extreme.

Encouraging the rich to save vast amounts of money when you really need them to spend and stimulate the economy is asking for trouble. They already lock vast amounts of the country’s wealth away in their properties; now they can lock even more away.

Meanwhile, even those tax breaks for industry are failing to impress the very people who are supposed to benefit.

What industry needs is an industrial policy to match the ones being launched in the USA and Europe, not a short-term fix on investment and a sharp increase in their energy costs which none of their rivals are going to have to deal with.

This is, in short, a budget that will please very few, it throws money at the rich when there is no money to spare, does very little to deal with the real issue – long-term growth rates – and leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

The Chancellor is saving up money for a pre-election giveaway, not what the country needs but what the Tory party desperately hopes will keep it in power.

It is another wasted chance, from the chancers.