The economic tanker is going to take time to turn around - Christine Jardine

Chancellor John Healey poses for photographs as he leaves 11 Downing Street, London, before delivering his first Budget. PIC: Stefan Rousseau/Press Association

All budgets are keenly awaited, speculated on and then scrutinised in great detail.

Some herald landmark decisions like the initial Covid Response package in 2020. Others live on in infamy like Liz Truss chaotic 2022 market crashing mini budget.

But John Healey’s budget on Wednesday is more difficult to categorise, coming, as it does, at a time when the unpredictability of the White House and Trump’s provocation of foreign wars creates an instability both in the international markets and for families here. It has driven up energy prices and added to an already difficult economic picture.

Much of the budget I welcome, of course. This is not the time to be disagreeing for disagreeing’s sake or scoring political points, even if perhaps it would not be unkind to say the budget was a little safe.

The economic tanker is going to take time to turn around, and we have to hope that the Chancellor has made a start.

Certainly, bringing down the crippling costs of energy bills, by removing the unfair gas standing charges to give families a little headroom is a step we should all support. And using funding from gambling and vape shops to support other high street businesses, as well as asking the banks that the British taxpayer bailed out two decades ago to now return the favour by paying an increased tax cannot be argued with.

As the supermarket shelves sock up with expensive festive goods, they will be looking for the measures that will help them afford Christmas and still be able to pay their bills and put food on the table.

That is where those on council bands A-D will be hoping that the Scottish Government steps up and fulfils the almost promise it made to match the £100 payment the UK government is offering in England.

Too often the massive funding settlements in the budget – this time £600 million – appears to disappear into a black hole rather than being used by the SNP administration to match in devolved areas those steps taken down south. This time we need to see that money used wisely for our benefit.

It will likely be no surprise to anyone, I would hope, that the impetus to create a better working relationship with the EU is one I heartily endorse. The damage created by that bad Brexit deal will take time to repair, but whatever the Government does moving forward will have to both respect the outcome of the 2016 referendum and win the support of the British people.

It will also take careful negotiations, hopefully starting at the forthcoming European summit. We have changed, as has the EU and we cannot just jump back in and pretend that the past decade has not happened. If only we could.

For our city specifically the Chancellor announced £18 million for advanced chip development led by Edinburgh University to help exploit the massive market for use in our mobile phones and tablets.

On Wednesday the Chancellor promised us that this was a “Labour budget for the worker, the sole trader, the parent at the school gate, the young person desperate to start their first job or business”.

Those are the people who will decide whether this budget falls into the landmark category.