ASI's Luke Bartholomew: Looming impact of Brexit weighs heavily on Budget

OBR windfall spent immediately

Chancellor Philip Hammond approached this Budget with many of the most important decisions affecting the public finances already made for him - or at least out of his hands, writes Luke Bartholomew, investment strategist at Aberdeen Standard Investments.

Despite this, he did receive some good news from the Office for Budgetary Responsibility's (OBR) upgrade to the short-term outlook for the public finances and the major strategic decision taken in this Budget was to spend the windfall. This means fiscal policy will provide a modest boost to GDP growth next year. Despite the OBR making a number of upgrades to its short-term growth forecasts, the medium to long-term outlook remains reasonably pessimistic. This reflects the UK's continuingly disappointing productivity record, and the fact that Brexit is likely to represent a further drag...