There were one or two surprises in this year’s Autumn Statement.

For the most part, however, as I said in Business Argus last week, much of what was said by the Chancellor in his Autumn statement had been 'pre-announced'.

So, the extra money for the NHS and the vast list of infra-structure spending, especially on road improvements, were already known.

Probably a token of more to come was the announcement of the new 'garden city' near Bicester in Oxfordshire.

The background to the statement was that the UK is clearly in a better state than it was.

We have the fastest growing economy in the G7, employment is higher than ever, unemployment is obviously down, most importantly, youth unemployment.

And yet, where is the feel good factor?

As I said last week, what we need now is a vision of the future of the UK which we can all embrace. There is a shortage of ambition among the political class, which needs to be corrected.

There were one or two announcements which did take some of us by surprise.

The most notable is the complete change to stamp duty payable on the purchase of property. This will benefit virtually all potential purchasers in Wales. Only properties costing more than £937,000 will pay more.

The other main point is that the duty will be progressive.

Previously, a house valued at £250,000 would suffer stamp duty of £2,500, whereas one priced at £250,001, would be charged at £7,500. This was clearly ridiculous and the change is a common sense reform.

Another main proposal was the rules governing ISAs. Effective immediately, ISAs will now be transferable to partners or spouses without creating a tax liability on death. This is another sensible reform, long overdue.

There were many other adjustments to personal taxation and allowances but none of them was significant.

The general drift is to increase the amount of the personal tax allowance to £10,600 by April 2015 against the original plan of £10,000, way back at the beginning of the parliament.

Also, the first move towards increasing the 40 per cent threshold to £50,000.

There will be continued pressure on public services to reduce waste. Multi-billion pound organisations, which do not have to suffer the scrutiny of shareholders, are bound to be wasteful, to a greater or lesser degree.

What did not happen in the statement, which was probably too much to expect of any politician, is what to do about the increasing cost of public sector pensions, some of which are unfunded, so must be supported by taxation. The demographic graphs are frightening, so this is perhaps best left as a topic for another day.