The Chancellor’s budget was well delivered and obtained a rousing reception (from his own side) in the House of Commons.

We’ve now had a chance to read the supporting documents and it looks a bit less impressive.

What appeared to be quite an expensive and carefully worked out programme to bring people back into the labour force, with child care measures alone costing over £5 billion a year, is estimated by the OBR only to boost the labour force by 110,000 in total.

The world class investment allowance regime announced in the Budget is only expected to boost investment by 3½ % (lower than Cebr’s estimate of about 5%.)

The good news is that the economy is set to avoid recession this year on the OBR forecasts – if only by the skin of its teeth with GDP overall for the year still down by 0.2%.

Read the full article.