Businesses in Cumbria are set to receive a welcome boost from what has been described as a “box of chocolates and a bunch of flowers” Autumn Budget.

Business leaders and experts in the county and across the region welcomed a package of measures to support businesses unveiled by chancellor Philip Hammond in the last budget before Britain leaves the European Union.

Announcing that austerity was coming to an end and that Britain faced a “brighter future”, Mr Hammond raised the Annual Investment Allowance, the income tax personal allowance, pledged extra money for roads, new investment to support projects linked to its Industrial Strategy, more funding to support the delivery of the Dreadnaught programme in Barrow and billions to help boost productivity.

He also announced the extension of the New Enterprise Allowance Scheme, a freeze in fuel duty, cuts in business rates for smaller retailers and halved the amount smaller businesses have to pay towards training apprentices.

Rob Johnston, Cumbria Chamber of Commerce chief executive, said he believed the increase in the income tax personal allowance to £12,500 next April – a year earlier than planned – would also give consumers more in their pockets to spend.

The measure – along with an extra £2.5 billion real terms increase for next five years, a £400m capital bonus for schools to help with the “little extras”, and freezes in duties on beer, cider and spirits – all added up to a crowd-pleasing budget with a possible ulterior motive, he added.

“It was a give-away, box of chocolates and a bunch of flowers kind of Budget as the Chancellor proclaimed that the ‘era of austerity is finally coming to an end’,” he said.

“It could be that he’s laying the ground for an early General Election if the Brexit talks go badly.”

Jim Meakin, head of tax at leading accountancy firm Armstrong Watson, also welcomed the Annual Investment Allowance increase and pledges to increase spending on research and development.

“Research and innovation are increasingly crucial to Cumbria, allied to the nuclear industry and otherwise, and the Budget commitment to strengthen the UK’s research and development capability by increasing R&D investment to 2.4 per cent of GDP by 2027 is most welcome,” he said.

Mr Hammond also announced an extension to start-up loans for up to 10,000 entrepreneurs to 2021, £200m extra to the British Business Bank to replace access to the European Investment Fund “if needed” and the pledged to halve the apprenticeship levy for smaller firms, from 10 per cent to five per cent.

A new £1.6bn investment fund will be created to support activities linked to the Government’s “modern” Industrial Strategy “ranging from nuclear fusion to quantum computing” added the chancellor.

Support for infrastructure and housing were also announced, including a £29bn National Roads Fund and £420m to be made available to highways authorities for pot holes and bridge repairs.

Mr Meakin added: “Specifically, Cumbria will also welcome the announcement of the National Roads Fund, alongside which a programme of investment in strategic roads specifically includes the trans-Pennine A66 route which is crucial to access into and out of our region.”

“And in a region where (in places) internet capability is a problem, the announced goal of providing a nationwide full fibre network by 2033 is good news, but perhaps also too far away if businesses are to compete on equal terms with better served regions.”

On new measures to support house building, Richard Miller, head of property at solicitors Burnetts added: “There is a lot of good news in the budget for the region’s housebuilders and Housing Associations, with £500m for the Housing Infrastructure Fund, and new partnerships with Housing Associations to deliver 13,000 new homes in England.

“Access to bank finance will hopefully be less of an obstacle for our developer clients, with guarantees of up to £1bn being made available to small house-builders”.

Mr Hammond said that Autumn Budget was helping to get the economy “back on its feet again”.

He said the country had witnessed eight years of economic growth, high employment and low unemployment rates, wages growing at faster pace than almost a decade and income equality at low levels.

He also revealed the economic forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).

The OBR predicts that growth will increase to 1.6 per cent in 2019 before dropping to 1.4 per cent in 2020 and 2021 before rising to 1.5 per cent in 2022 and 1.6 per cent in 2023.

Meanwhile, borrowing it set to fall from £31.8bn in 2019-20, to £26.7bn 2020-21, £2.3bn in 2021-22, £20.8bn in 2022-23, £19bn in 2023-24.

The OBR also predicts that there will be 800,000 more jobs by 2023 and there will be real wage growth for the next five years.