Autumn Statement: No hard hat, but hard-thinking from Hammond?

So all eyes are on what Philip Hammond will pull out of his hat today. A magician he is expected to be, with a larger-than-expected deficit this year but expectations, which he himself has encouraged with his talk of "high-value" infrastructure, that there will be additional investment.

A graph plotting levels of Government rhetoric against levels of investment may not show any correlation. Speaking of hats, despite the former Chancellor George Osborne’s trademark hardhat and high-vis jacket - mocked by the Prime Minister as she donned them at an awards dinner earlier this month - net investment fell from £41bn in 2010/11 to £34bn in 2015/16. So in some sense the new Chancellor does have wriggle room.

While it would take eye-watering amounts to take us to OECD levels of recommended capital investment, 3.5% of GDP - £38bn in 2020/21 alone according to Demos, more than doubling what is achieved today - another think-tank provided him the cover to still achieve historically high levels. The Resolution Foundation said an extra £31bn could be achieved over this Parliament whilst still reducing the day-to-day deficit - the frugality on Government overheads to focus on what will increase productivity pursued by Canada and here advocated by the Lib Dems.

Sky News suggested Hammond might not go this far, but may still go further than the extra £6bn urged by the CBI, to £15bn. This would be more than double what local authorities including TfL were spending on transport investment at the start of this Parliament. With housing having rocketed up the political agenda, and pressure for action on broadband, transport will have to fight it out to hold on to its slice if there is a bigger pie. And Hammond may well look to further boost this by levering in more private investment. May has talked up infrastructure bonds. We have also seen an increasing role for private developers.

Developers contributed more than an eighth of the total local transport capital spend in 2015/16, half went towards Crossrail. Devolution could allow this trend to continue given the the scope for more local income generation and retention - and it may have to, given the London Mayor moving to freeze fares and urging Hammond to do the same with national rail fares, denuding that pot of money. And the transport sector not only wants investment, it wants certainty. The National Infrastructure Commission was meant to provide this, and take the politics out of transport, but its emerging national assessment of infrastructure needs will not be consulted on until next summer.

Will investment be locked-in? Previous incoming administrations have inevitably reviewed programmes, and we saw that when Labour came to power in 1997 determined to show it was hard-headed, leading to a choking off of investment until Labour's fifth year. The same with the coalition Government, which after ordering a review of capital spending, had not returned to 2009/10 investment levels before the end of that Parliament. A review this time may actually lead to more, given the calls from all sides to invest to save the economy, one area on which we can all agree with the U.S president-elect.

The hope is that this is more than money for “shovel-ready” projects to give a short-term fillip to the economy, but is a sustained commitment to acting on the OECD call for investment as a share of growth while acting on NIC recommendations on long-term infrastructure needs. If the less stunt-prone Chancellor passes on the chance of wearing a hard hat but provides such a commitment, that may well bring a little pre-Christmas cheer.