Budget 2016: City deals, sugar tax, slashing tolls and creating enterprise zones

According to UK Government sources, this was a budget from a Chancellor prepared to invest in Wales but there's no doubt that May's Welsh election was also prominent in his mind.

George Osborne said talks would begin on a city deal for the Swansea region, similar to that announced for the Cardiff area yesterday.

Read more: £1.2billion Cardiff City Region deal signed

He also announced plans for a 'Growth Deal' for north Wales, although there are few details of what that would involve.

The Chancellor said there'd be extra money for the Welsh Government to spend as it wishes as a knock-on effect of money raised from a Sugar Tax being spent on sport in English primary schools.

Ministers in London will work with those in Cardiff to create an enterprise zone centred on Port Talbot. That'll mean tax breaks for firms investing in that area to try to help it cope with job losses at Tata's steelworks in the town.

And a promise to halve the Severn Tolls from 2018 must have been a very welcome pre-Election gift to Welsh Tories whose relations with their Westminster colleagues have undergone a tense couple of weeks.

It won't satisfy everyone though. There are many in Wales who think the tolls should be devolved to Cardiff or abolished or both.

Read more: Severn Crossing tolls set to be halved

Talking of devolution, there was a notable absence in this budget: the devolution of Air Passenger Duty.

The tax has been transferred to Scotland and Northern Ireland, but a concerted lobbying operation by Conservative MPs in the South West of England is understood to have persuaded the Chancellor to defer the decision.

In fact there's more than a suspicion among MPs and the Welsh Government that he's already decided not to devolve APD because of the impact it could have on Bristol Airport and the only reason it hasn't been announced now is because of the Welsh Election.