AS Alistair Darling made his Budget submission last Wednesday, one of his proposals seemed to grab the country’s attention immediately – cider duty is to rise by ten per cent above inflation.

But as the Wurzel’s hit ‘I’m a Cider Drinker’ becomes a protest song for those opposed to the increase, the Chancellor’s real punishment has been doled out to businesses.

The planned one per cent increase in employer National Insurance (NI) contributions that will be introduced in April next year is still set to go ahead, at a cost of £6bn to UK firms. This tax on jobs was announced last year, and Mr Darling could have used this, potentially his last Budget, as an opportunity to remove the proposed rise.

Instead, he announced a £2.5bn package of “help for businesses”, which goes some way to mitigating the effects of the NI rise, but neatly avoids the issue at the same time.

Mr Darling also ignored calls for him to abandon empty property rates, while making a slight concession to appeals from the business community by staggering the 3p rise in fuel duty.

Wednesday’s announcement was not without its highlights. The increased infrastructure investment for offshore wind turbine manufacture places the North-East in a great position, as this is an industry in which the region has the potential to be a world beater. The commitment to helping smaller businesses to win more government contracts is a positive step, and will hopefully be followed by the wider public sector market.

The credit adjudication service will be useful for firms which have been struggling with credit frustrations, but we await details of precisely how this will work in practice.

The UK Finance for Growth fund, which aims to bring together all public investment funds into a coherent portfolio, could provide another route for young and growing firms to acquire funding. The North- East was already ahead of the game in this area with the launch of the Jeremie fund.

This was a Budget that will not live long in the annals of history, despite a growing Facebook campaign in support of poor old cider. The pain of the missed opportunity to remove the NICs increase will have a longerlasting legacy. There’s still time to fight this and I would urge every business to sign a petition against it at no-nics-rise.co.uk

■ James Ramsbotham is chief executive of the North-East Chamber of Commerce.