Chancellor Philip Hammond presented his first, and last, Spring Statement last week.

Here's what the local business community thought of it...

Richard Ellis, director, Ellis, Lloyd Jones Chartered Accountants, Newport

While the deferral of MTD for a year was welcome, the increase in National Insurance was not. The timing of this is not good considering the government need to be encouraging and helping small businesses. This contrasted with the way multinational business still avoid tax is quite annoying for the small business owner. Also noticeable that pensioners are still not being expected to contribute anything to the cause, despite the rest of society (apart from big companies) being hit hard since 2008. If the government is willing to reduce the benefits the disabled receive then it should be looking at pensioners in the same way. But this would cost too many votes, I suspect.

John Newell, director, Kingston Newell Estate Agents, Newport

There was little if any mention of the housing market in Wednesday’s Budget which did somewhat surprise me as only a month ago the Government stated that Britain’s housing market is broken. Some in our industry were expecting announcements regarding the Housing White Paper, ban on letting agent fees, phased withdrawal of tax relief on mortgage interest for landlords amongst other subjects but Chancellor Philip Hammond did not mention any of these. Demand for houses continues to outstrip supply resulting in an increase in prices . I did wonder if the UK Government was going to announce further funding packages to provide financial assistance for those struggling to buy a property although first time buyers levels did increase in the first quarter of this year but nothing was said.

Amalia Protheroe, director, Homelink Lettings, Newport & Chepstow

In general disappointing, I was eager to hear his proposals to help the struggling property market which by the governments own admission is at a breaking point but there was no mention at all of housing in the budget. In light of this recognition we had high hopes that the chancellor would come up with measures to assist the struggling market by scrapping the three per cent surcharge on second homes, increasing the lower threshold tax band in line with today’s average house prices to stimulate movement at the lower end of the market and help first time buyers get on to the housing ladder. Within the letting industry, I was hoping that the chancellor would revert his decision to ban tenant fees. We will just have to wait and see if the Chancellor will do anything to address this issues in his combined budget and autumn statement due in November.

Dan Smith, director, M4 Property Consultants, Newport

With little change from the Autumn Statement, the Spring Budget didn’t have much to say for the Welsh economy or for protecting people’s jobs and wages for the future. Brexit has brought with it a lot of uncertainty, so we can understand why they are holding back on spending in these areas. Economic protection may act as a safety blanket at such a time. We were pleased to learn that support for small businesses by means of £300m will be provided to help accommodate the increase in business rates. This is an area that would heavily affect our industry. However, the support doesn’t span to Wales, so if and when the Welsh Government decide to act on this, there’s not much more to say.