When Philip Hammond stepped up to the Commons dispatch box for his first spring Budget, it was also his last as the Chancellor pre-announced that his main set-piece annual economic statement would from this year take place in the autumn. So 2017 will see two Budgets not one.

From next year, the Spring Statement will replace what we have become accustomed to as the Autumn Statement and will in essence be just the UK Government’s response to the latest forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility. There will be, so we are told, no major fiscal event in spring. But circumstances might dictate otherwise.

A change had been urged because a Budget in March was deemed to be too close to the start of the new financial year in April, which meant households and businesses were often hit by almost instantaneous tax changes.

It was in 1975 that the then Labour Government began to publish twice yearly economic forecasts but in 1982 the Thatcher Government decided to use the Autumn Statement to make additional tax and spending changes.

A decade later, Chancellor Ken Clarke decided to merge the two in an autumn Budget. But when Labour came to power in 1997 Gordon Brown decided to go back to two statements with a pre-Budget report in the autumn and the main Budget in the spring. When the Lib-Con Coalition arrived in 2010, the new Chancellor George Osborne decided to rename Mr Brown’s pre-Budget report the Autumn Statement.

One of the biggest changes to the Budget occurred earlier this year when Holyrood received a package of powers to set the rates and bands of income tax on non-savings and non-dividend income as well as half the share of VAT receipts in Scotland being assigned to the Scottish Government's budget.

This means the all-encompassing fiscal nature of the UK Budget has been altered as it is the Scottish Finance Secretary who now has the power to change income tax rates in Scotland.

The UK Government’s annual Budget dates from the 1720s and Sir Robert Walpole, generally regarded as Britain’s first Prime Minister.

In days gone by, MPs used to wear top hats and formal frockcoats to Budget Day. Indeed in 1968, high Tory Sir Gerald Narbarro continued the practice only to spy across the chamber Labour stalwart Tom Swain, wearing a white miner’s helmet.

The key Budget Day speech can vary in length but is usually an hour long. Spare a thought for the MPs in 1853 who had to endure the longest, delivered by William Gladstone at a sleep-inducing four hours and 45 minutes.

Through the years Chancellors have taken to strengthening their resolve with a little alcohol. Gladstone took sherry and an egg, Disraeli sipped brandy with a little water. More recently, Geoffrey Howe was a G&T man while Mr Clarke slugged on Scotch whisky.

In 1960, Tory Chancellor Derick Heathcoat-Amory collapsed while delivering his Budget yet he was regarded as giving one of the best Budget one-liners: "There are three things not worth running for; a bus, a woman or a new economic panacea. If you wait a bit, another one will come along."

In 1986, Tory Chancellor Nigel Lawson was forced to suspend his Budget because of uproar in the Commons chamber after SNP MPs intervened.

The contents of the Chancellor’s famous red box are avidly guarded as many issues are market sensitive. But leaks have occurred.

In 1947, Hugh Dalton leaked key parts of his Budget to John Carvel, a reporter on The Star, London’s old evening paper. However, the Labour Chancellor did not appreciate the speed of newspapers and reports of a penny on a pint of beer and a tax on dog racing appeared in the paper before Mr Dalton had reached that point in his speech.

He resigned the following day. Clement Attlee, the Prime Minister, famously labelled his colleague "a perfect ass".

But by far the worst leak occurred in 1996 when virtually all of Mr Clarke's last Budget was leaked to the Labour-supporting Daily Mirror on the eve of Budget Day. Remarkably perhaps, the paper resisted the temptation to publish any of its contents and decided to hand the papers back to the Treasury; much to the Chancellor's relief.