So how did he do? Opinion on our new Chancellor seems to have been rather positive. Against the backdrop of rollercoaster markets, emergency interest rate cuts and Coronavirus fears he did pretty well, especially for someone thrown into the job just a few weeks ago.

He even managed a couple of gags, always my measure of a confident Chancellor.

So I should be happier but I’m not.

He failed to grasp any kind of pensions nettle, although thankfully the long rumoured cutbacks to pension tax relief, particularly for higher earners, did not emerge.

He did tackle (to some degree) the pension taper issue which has hit many high earners, especially NHS consultants and doctors, so he deserves credit for that but there was little else on pensions.

Calls for the extension of auto-enrolment were ignored, significant increases to the the Lifetime and Annual Allowances were not offered, there was no update on the Pensions Dashboard.

He may have felt measures to help businesses cope with Coronavirus were more important - and who would disagree - but he could have done more to help the 'people' he referred to 43 times during his speech.

I suspect he felt the huge lobbying on pensions was too much to take in and he left some key pension issues on the backburner. That suggests a wise head so I would give him credit for that too but take a couple of points off for failing to give any clear direction on pensions.

On investment, there were some odd moves. The more than doubling of the Junior ISA allowance was generous but other ISA rates were left unchanged.

On income tax there was almost nothing. A simple cut to the income tax rate or an above inflation increase to thresholds could have helped a lot of hard-pressed families. The NI threshold rise was useful but small beer, equal to about £2 a week for most people, not enough for a pint (at least not in London).

So lots of important stuff ‘missing’ from this Budget. Admittedly he has been faced with a horrendous economic backdrop so he may have felt it was a good time to avoid being too radical although the extensive commitment to infrastructure spending was commendable.

For Financial Planners I suspect there was little ‘meat’ in what he disclosed and the market turmoil will be more of a pressing issue.

He called his Budget a ‘People’s Budget’ so helping people save for their retirement and for a rainy day must be a priority. Let's hope there is more focus on helping 'people' save and invest next time.

• There is extensive coverage of the Budget changes in Financial Planning Today’s news section.

Kevin O’Donnell is editor of Financial Planning Today and a financial journalist with 30 years experience.  This topical comment on the Financial Planning news appears most weeks.

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