Exactly two years since the first lockdown was announced, the eyes of the public were firmly fixed on the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, as he rose to the despatch box in the House of Commons to deliver his Spring Statement.

Yet again, Mr Sunak found himself addressing MPs against a background of crisis, with the residual impact of COVID, the invasion of Ukraine and the cost-of-living crisis all affecting the economy in different ways.

The cost-of-living crisis will have been weighing especially heavily on the Chancellor’s mind. Just hours earlier, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) had confirmed that inflation had hit a 30-year high of 6.2 per cent. Meanwhile, petrol and diesel were averaging 166p and 178p a litre respectively, and anxiety is rising about the £693 increase to the energy price cap coming into effect on 1 April.

Compounding matters, a 1.25 percentage point increase in National Insurance Contributions (NICs) for employees and employers is set to take effect on 6 April.

Employers will also need to contend with substantial rises in the rates of the National Minimum Wage (NMW) and National Living Wage (NLW) from 1 April.

Individuals and businesses alike were hoping the Chancellor would announce further measures to address the cost-of-living crisis.

However, this was a Spring Statement. While they can morph into mini-Budgets, they typically contain little by way of concrete tax and spending measures.

Instead, the main purpose of a Spring Statement is to set out the latest economic forecasts prepared by the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR), often followed by the launch of various consultations on the Government’s longer-term plans.

Mr Sunak and his allies had spent the days and weeks ahead of the Statement letting it be known that he wanted largely to stick to his existing plans and resist calls to make major changes.

Delivering the Mais Lecture at Bayes Business School last month, Mr Sunak said:

“And the impact of these trends on people is being exacerbated by high inflation. This is primarily a global problem, driven by higher energy and goods prices.

“The government is dealing with high inflation by helping people with those extra costs, and through the monetary policy framework.

“But over the longer-term, the most important thing we can do is rejuvenate our productivity.”

The suggestion was that Government assistance with the cost-of-living crisis should be limited and that dramatic interventions would not be on the cards.

But the scale of the crisis meant political pressure on the Chancellor from diverse quarters to take immediate action was increasing by the day.

In the event, the Chancellor bowed to pressure and pulled several rabbits from his hat with a focus on supporting workers.