Businesses were both winners and losers in the Chancellor’s eighth Budget depending on which end of the spectrum they operate in. For small to medium-sized companies (SMEs), plans to reduce corporation tax rates, a surprise cut in capital gains tax (CGT) across all bands and changes to business rates were positve.

But this has to be taken in the context of a backlash against the chancellor over harsh disability cuts which were quickly booted into the long grass as the chief architect of welfare reform Iain Duncan Smith oddly resigned.