A number of measures have already been announced to come into effect this year, including a 2 percentage-point increase in the insurance premium tax and a cut in corporation tax. The Chancellor may well modify some of these measures.

He will surely concede some form of compensation for firms severely hit by the resetting of business rates. But, above all, he must keep current government spending under a very tight rein to allow the Government room for manoeuvre later.

Mind you, all this is going to seem pretty thin gruel. Could we please have some more? In particular, as I said last year, it would be good to have, if not a vision (and “Spreadsheet Phil” apparently doesn’t do “the vision thing”) then at least a glimpse of how the tax system is going to develop.

In fact, very few Chancellors find themselves able to embrace radical reform of the tax system. Usually, they are too busy grappling with the Government’s deficit to have either the resources or the time.

This is true now, and whatever energy is left is fully absorbed in preparing Britain for Brexit. Yet reform is badly needed. In so many ways, our current tax system is both irrational and inimical to economic growth.

Perhaps we can forgive Mr Hammond his first, and last, boring March Budget. But there should not be any more like it. Tax reform and making the most of Brexit are not alternatives. Indeed, as Britain faces its future outside the EU in a turbulent and risky world, one of the best things that a Chancellor can do is to ensure that the tax system does the most to attract and retain businesses in Britain, and encourages new business formation, innovation, investment and work.

Mr Hammond will not make progress towards these objectives by doing next to nothing, whichever month is graced with his inactivity.

David Fuller's view

Given what we have seen of Theresa May’s government so far, and the uncertainty regarding Brexit and what she will be seeing from the EU during the next year or two, I think she and Philip Hammond will be very prudent with the Budget and economic policy generally, until the UK has effectively left the EU.  That will mark the start of bolder Budgets.

Here is a PDF of Roger Bootle’s column.