Hammond’s abolition of stamp duty for first time buyers might be a tax cut, but it doesn’t go anything like as far as the Institute of Economic Affairs, Adam Smith Institute and Taxpayers’ Alliance were hoping (they wanted it abolished for everyone). This line from the OBR is a tough one for the government to explain: the policy will increase house prices by 0.3%.

Given the OBR’s forecasting accuracy this is a rounding error that is less than the cash value of the stamp duty cut…