Autumn Statement consigned to history

Today's Autumn Statement was the first to the delivered by Philip Hammond - and it "will also be my last", he said.

Beginning in autumn 2017, there will only be one budget announcement and it will contain all the fiscal and tax changes for implementation by the beginning of the next tax year.

A smaller "spring statement" will simply be a response to the twice-annual Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecasts and will contain no "significant tax changes", said the Chancellor, announcing his decision to the Commons.

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He added: "No other major economy makes hundreds of tax changes twice a year and neither should we."

The Chancellor has long been said not to be a fan of the political grandstanding of his predecessors, which has seen the Autumn Statement, once a modest event known variously as the mini-Budget or pre-Budget report, grow into a major headline event.

The International Monetary Fund claims the "quantum of policy announcements that have been part of Autumn Statements over the last six years… eclipsed the impact of fellow Budget statements by some margin", says FTAdviser.

It called for exactly the measure Hammond announced today: for there to be one annual budget held at least three months before the start of the tax year.

Returning to an autumn budget harks back to the period between 1993 and 1996, when Norman Lamont was Tory chancellor, says former Bank of England rate-setter Andrew Sentence.

Meanwhile, the OBR forecasts in the last Autumn Statement did not make for positive reading. Growth next year, estimated at 2.2 per cent in March, is now predicted to come in at 1.4 per cent, while overall expansion will be 2.4 per cent lower in the next five years.

The BBC says the budget will now not be in surplus by the end of this parliament and there will be £122bn more borrowing in this parliament than had previously been expected.