While the government will want to clear up its messy year of Finance Bills with an orderly status quo Budget, it needs to be bolder and start investing

Next month is Chancellor Philip Hammond's first Autumn Budget. Yet the pomp for the event might be diminished by the fact that the previous finance bill will only just reach it's third reading this Tuesday.

The Chancellor's Spring Budget had been one for pluggling holes. There were Reliefs for those affected by business rate changes. A tax rise for the self-employed (on which he later u-turned). And there was spending - in the millions rather than billions - across key areas like health and social care, construction and education.

All of these came as the clearance of the debt and deficit, and restoration of growth - the long term promises of the Conservatives - remained a long way from being a achieved.

With the truncated Parliamentary session, the Finance Bill reappeared in the Summer once the new MPs took their seats. It has a been a messy and confusing year that will have left many in confusion as to what is and isn't in the Treasury's plans.

The first obstacle the government must navigate is the amendments to the Finance Bill. Labour and Cooperative backbencher Stella Creasy put forward a series of amendments that press the government to action on tax evasion and the exploitative gains made by those corporations who engaged in PFI, private-public investment schemes under Blair and Brown.

These are yet more subjects on which the Tories are divided. And Labour pressure, with Conservative backbench support has ensured that changes will need to be made to the Universal Credit rollout come the Autumn Budget. 

That will have to mean another government U-turn - a term that is coming to be the lasting testament to how ineffective Conservative government has been. They promised stability and only produce confusion.

To that end, the instincts of Hammond and the government will surely be for this messy year of Finance Bills to be tied off with a clean, efficient budget that gets everyone on the same page. To resist change. Status quo may well be the order of the day.

And yet, action is needed. Globalisation continues to reek havoc on communities, as outside of the rich bubbles were technology and advantage and money clusters, investment is dire.

As Mariana Mazzucato stresses, the big private players do not take risks and will not redress this balance themselves. The state needs to invest and create markets, to be the pioneer that the private sector simply isn't.

The 2017 budget has to tackle the lack of opportunities, the need for innovative new industry with the training to staff them, and the cost of living that suppresses and excludes so many. Government can only achieve these things if the public sector steps out in front and takes the lead.

References

'Autumn Budget 2017: The Chancellor of the Exchequer will present his Autumn Budget to Parliament on 22 November 2017'; from GOV.UK; as of 30 October 2017.

'Budget 2017 summary: Key points at-a-glance'; from the BBC; 8 March 2017.

Kevin Peachey's 'Budget 2017: What it means for you'; on the BBC; 8 March 2017.

'Budget 2017: Self-employed 'tax raid' a 'rookie error''; from the BBC; 11 March 2017.

'The Budget: Hammond's budget all about tweaks - spending headlines mostly in the millions rather than the billions'; in The Alternative; 8 March 2017.

'Finance Bill 2017-19'; from Parliament; as of 29 October 2017.

Jim Pickard & Gill Plimmer's 'Labour MP calls for windfall tax on PFI companies: Stella Creasy focuses on groups involved in the private finance initiative'; in the Financial Times; 19 October 2017.

John Ashmore's 'Hammond faces tough vote on Creasy Finance Bill amendment: Chancellor Philip Hammond will face a tricky vote on Tuesday’s Finance Bill, as an amendment to close a tax loophole for foreign property owners is thought to have cross-party support'; on Politics Home; 28 October 2017.

Edward Malnick's 'Ministers set to use budget to climbdown on Government's Universal Credit scheme'; in The Telegrpah; 28 October 2017.

'Leader: Left behind: The right way to help places hurt by globalisation'; in The Economist; 21 October 2017.

'Briefing - Left-behind places: In the lurch - Many places have lost out to globalisation. What can be done to help them?'; in The Economist; 21 October 2017.

Mariana Mazzucato's 'Government - investor, risk-taker, innovator'; from TED; June 2013.