Dan Lewis: A good starting point, but the test of this Budget will be outside Osborne's control

Budget at a glance

Hear informed debate in a special edition of our BusinessTalk podcast, with experts from Deloitte in Leeds

Meanwhile, the budget deficit at 12.7 per cent of GDP – if not brought under control – threatens to bring the economy to its knees. Economic growth is anaemic, our traditional export markets in Europe are imploding and the banks are still not lending much.

So, as he stepped up to the dispatch box yesterday, few could envy being in the young Chancellor's shoes. But was the Budget good for business, does the job creation rhetoric measure up and is it plausible to eliminate the structural deficit in just one Parliamentary term?

The Budget has already got a qualified thumbs-up from the main business organisations. The British Chambers of Commerce's chief economist David Kern called it bold and aggressive while cautioning on over-optimistic forecasts on employment and economic growth. Richard Lambert at the CBI called it the first important step on the long journey back to economic

health. And the Institute of Directors praised the faster and deeper approach to deficit reduction.

Still, as is now customary, many of the Budget's measures were trailed in the media for weeks leading up to the event. And so what we have is a division between expenditure cuts and tax increases of 77 to 23 per cent – very similar to the much-trailed 80 to 20 per cent split. For all that, as is so often the case, the devil really is in the detail.

Take, for example, last week's news of the cancellation of the 80m loan to Sheffield Forgemasters to build vital nuclear power components. This is gravely mistaken. It is a seller's market, and now Britain will have to join the long queue to buy steel pressure chambers abroad on the suppliers' own costly and delayed terms. Sure, the loan may have been worth only 150 jobs.

But why didn't someone in the Department for Energy and Climate Change pipe up and ask how much is a 80m loan compared to the 1bn annual bill for over-subsidising Britain's wind turbines or, worse still, a national power cut?

Honouring the election pledge to cut Corporation Tax has to be the right way to go, even if it is a mere one per cent per year from next year for four years from 28 per cent today. Businesses really don't have much capital to invest or create new jobs with and every little bit helps. But no one should hold their breath for this measure to attract a new wave of foreign direct investment.

Unlike the 1980s or '90s, there is no wall of Japanese, European or American capital looking for a new home in the European Union. And if corporation tax was the decisive metric, they would probably look to the Republic of Ireland first with its rate 12.5 per cent. Even then, capital is much more mobile than before and the opportunities outside of the EU have never been better. At best, I suspect this measure will discreetly stave off some capital flight and the jobs that go with them.

And so on to the new supranational bank levy. I'm all for making sure that our banks pay back the bailout money, but I'm just not sure that the new bank levy – in co-ordination with France and Germany and possibly the rest of the G20 – is the best way of doing it. It is expected to raise more than 2bn a year, but one can't be sure that these funds wouldn't be better off reallocated back to repairing the balance sheets of our banks, increasing the lending they used to do and employing more high tax-paying staff. On this we must wait and see.

The uproar over the coalition's plans to raise Capital Gains Tax are not without foundation. Compared to say America, Britain has a dearth of risk capital for small and medium sized businesses because its taxes on capital – savings, inheritance and financial holdings – are too high to create a large enough pool of alternative investors to the

usually conservative banks.

The fudge of 28 per cent CGT is better than the proposed 40 per cent. But they should look again at John Redwood's proposals for tapered relief.

Of particular interest is this Budget's interest in tackling regional economic differences in Britain. The regional development agencies have rightly come in for no small amount of criticism on this because it is very hard to equalise the distribution of economic growth. So I am sceptical that a regional growth fund to help fund regional capital projects over two years will deliver any better than what was there before.

I am, however, intrigued by the National Insurance proposals – exempting NI payments for the first 10 workers outside of London and the South East. As for Northern Ireland – a near Soviet economy but now at peace – it really can do with a lot of rebalancing from public subsidies to private business.

George Osborne has had a tough time these last few years as Shadow Chancellor and not always justifiably. This is a good starting departure for British jobs and business. But when all is said and done, the real test of this Budget will be the next one.

There are just too many factors – Europe, the value of pound, inward investment and consumer sentiment – over which Osborne has little or no control. And if events go badly, the next Budget will have to be even tougher.