Hammond hasn't had enough of experts

Hammond seems to have a well-read advisory team. This bit of the speech seemed to have been written in direct response to Simon Tilford’s pamphlet on Britain’s mediocre economy, published last week (picked up in Free Lunch and later by Martin Wolf). Hammond pointed out that labour productivity in Britain is worse not just than that of the US and Germany, but also France and Italy. He pointed out that changing this requires greater investment in infrastructure and skills. And he highlighted the large disparity in prosperity between different regions of the UK. It was as if he was ticking boxes set out by Tilford, since these were the main headings in the pamphlet.