HAVING struck such an aspirational tone in the opening salvos of this week’s Budget, it’s a sobering thought to consider that Philip Hammond’s main objective was not to make a pig’s ear of it during such a torrid period for the Government.

Most of his Cabinet colleagues seem to agree he’d made a ‘solid’ job of it, but few other commentators in the immediate aftermath have even managed to be that effusive.

Overall the theme for me is that he’s tinkered around the edges, and in many areas where he triumphantly heralded a new intervention, once you get into the small print it’s clear he could actually have gone a bit further.

R&D relief was increased to 12 per cent from 11 per cent; on the face of it, that’s good news. Our economy is built on innovation across food and drink, oil and gas, life sciences, digital technologies. But given that most Scottish SMEs don’t have enormous R&D budgets in the first place, one percentage point isn’t likely to encourage a huge upswing in research-led innovation, or any knock-on effects in other areas of investment.

Our economy has a significant proportion of businesses involved in hospitality and food and drink; many of these are dependent on large workforces at the lower end of the salary scale.

While few people would argue in principle against increasing the National Living Wage (NLW) next year, from £7.50 to £7.83 an hour, it increases the pressure on many of these businesses. With rising costs from recent pension changes and food and drink raw ingredients, hotels and restaurants in particular are likely to feel as if they have nowhere to go. They can’t increase prices too much without driving away custom, so they have a very difficult job in protecting margin while maintaining service levels.

Mr Hammond could have helped to balance this. He highlighted the low VAT thresholds across the EU, if only to confirm that he wouldn’t be lowering the threshold at which a business becomes liable to charge it. But what he didn’t mention is that VAT rates for hospitality and tourism sectors are lower in many European countries; in France, for example, the rate is as low as five and a half per cent on sales, compared to 20 per cent in the UK. A targeted rate reduction could have balanced the burden on hospitality and other service sectors. The business activity that might stimulate could generate increased tax receipts rather than act as a weight on the Exchequer.

As well as raising the NLW, he increased the personal allowance (the point at which you start paying income tax on your wages) and the higher-rate 40% tax threshold; to £11,850 and £46,350 respectively. While a cynic might observe that could have been at least partly designed to put pressure on the SNP administration over the Scottish Rate of Income Tax, the fact is it does raise the issue of divergence between personal taxation north and south of the Border.

It’s been recently suggested that the Scottish higher-rate band could be tied to inflation, which might help to close the gap, but I’d be surprised if Derek Mackay, the Scottish Finance Secretary, didn’t have a counter riposte in December’s Scottish Budget.

On that note, there was also satisfied cheering from the Tory benches at the Chancellor’s announcement of the Stamp Duty exemption for first-time buyers. That won’t apply in Scotland, of course, where we have Land and Buildings Transaction Tax instead, and has already led to calls for the Scottish Government to propose similar measures. So while the gauntlet may have been thrown down to the SNP, I wouldn’t bet against them responding in December.

Ultimately the impact on Scottish businesses isn’t much to write home about. The most significant difference will be for the leisure industry, and others with large workforces, who now have another cost to manage in what’s already a very tight environment.

Hugh Boyle is head of hospitality and leisure at accountancy firm Johnston Carmichael