Philip Hammond shows he is no Robin Hood for younger generation | Patrick Collinson

We expected a budget that would take from the old and give to the young. What we got was one that gave a few well-signalled bungs to the middle-aged (higher tax thresholds), some giveaways to the youngish (stamp duty cuts, a new railcard) and left the elderly untouched. And as for the very rich? Well, they’re still living in paradise.

Philip Hammond is no intergenerational Robin Hood. While he slashed stamp duty for almost every first-time buyer (outside London) he conspicuously avoided provoking older voters; pension tax reliefs remain sacrosanct, as does the winter fuel allowance and the “triple lock” on pension increases.

The giveaway on stamp duty will help nearly every aspiring first-time buyer – if they live north of Sherwood Forest. Fully 98% of first-time buyers in the Midlands and the north of England buy homes below £300,000, with the abolition saving them £1,500 on a £200,000 home, and £5,000 on one priced at £300,000.

But only 30% of first-time buyers in London can find homes below even £300,000, although this rises to 85% at the £500,000 level. The chancellor said first-timers who buy homes up to £500,000 can carry over the zero rating to £300,000, so they will mostly save £5,000.

The bigger issue is that the gains will simply be inflated away into higher house prices. First-time buyers will be tempted to bid £5,000 more for a property with the tax money saved – so the real winners will be the people selling the home, not the buyer.

A new railcard for 26- to 30-year-olds is a minor sop. The cost of commuting is far more important to young adults, many of whom must live far from their workplaces to afford a rentable property. Hammond did not mention that the average rail ticket price will rise by 3.6% in January 2018 (on an already announced RPI formula), adding £69 to the cost of, for example, a Leeds-to-Manchester commute. Railcards that give no discount on peak-time travel are not much cop to most young adults in work.

But any help for younger workers is long overdue. Research by the Resolution Foundation found the incomes of young families aged under 35 are no higher today than they were 15 years ago. Meanwhile the income of pensioners is up 30% in real terms over the same period. But the youngest new voters will be sorely disappointed that Hammond ducked the question of interest rates on student loans, which remain as high as 6.1%.

To Hammond’s credit, he has rejected the cries of rich buy-to-let landlords to halt the tax changes that will reduce some of their profits. Already there is evidence that making buy to let less financially attractive has opened the door to young adults to buy a home, rather than landlords adding yet another property to their portfolio.

But in reality there was nothing in this budget that was big and bold, nor particularly new. Hammond’s hands are tied by the triple lock of manifesto promises, a still huge budget deficit and a weak outlook for economic growth.

The three big domains of personal tax are income tax, national insurance and VAT. Predictably, after his last budget debacle, Hammond left NI untouched. The shape of VAT is largely controlled by the EU, so expect more on that when we finally exit, but there was nothing in this budget.

At the election, the Conservatives promised no income tax rises (there weren’t) and a continuation of rises in the personal allowance and tax thresholds (as indeed there was). Hammond pushed the personal allowance up again to £11,850, which is worth £70 to a basic-rate taxpayer. The rise is probably slightly less than the £500 extra many expected. The starting point for higher rate tax goes up more, to £46,350, up £1,350 from the last tax year. That is equal to a tax cut worth £270 to higher earners.

These rates make Britain one of the lowest tax jurisdictions among the major developed nations. In France, the personal allowance is €9,710 (£8,615) and in Germany it is even less. A halt to future increases in the personal allowance above £12,500 is now likely, not least because Britain’s low-pay “jobs miracle” is a headache for the Treasury, as few of them now pay much to the exchequer.

Meanwhile, diesel drivers will be relieved, even if cyclists will not; the much-anticipated attack on diesel amounted to nothing more than a small hike in vehicle excise duty, adding about £10 to £40 depending on the size of the car.

Ultimately this was a weak and forgettable budget from a government that promised it would be strong and stable. Everyone asks: “Will I be better off or worse off?” The big picture is that with inflation at 3% and pay rises around 2%, this year you will be worse off irrespective of budget tinkering. And as one radio commentator said on Wednesday, this budget is like finding a fiver on the floor compared with the giant issue of Brexit.

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