QUITE what the new UK Chancellor, Philip Hammond, has in store for us in his upcoming Autumn Budget Statement remains to be seen.

Hammond is yet another typical Oxford graduate – like Tony Blair, David Cameron, Ed Miliband, George Osborne, Theresa May, Angela Eagle and so on ad infinitum.

So expect the usual British Establishment group-think: caution, short-termism, and surrender to vested interests.

Yet with the UK economy becalmed post Brexit, we are in desperate need of radical ideas. Top of the list: a big fiscal injection to the economy. Welcome back John Maynard Keynes (who went to Cambridge).

Brexit has caused an immediate negative shock to the UK economy, with worse to come as foreign investors relocate new manufacturing projects to America and the European mainland in coming years.

True, we’ve not seen the economic holocaust predicted by ex-Chancellor George Osborne. But that was always a fantasy designed to scare the horses. And the 15 per cent fall in sterling (trade-weighted) is an even bigger boost to exports than the devaluation of 2009, when the global economy was on the rocks after the big banking crisis.

Nevertheless, UK investment is cratering and domestic consumer confidence has taken a bad knock. And this despite the Bank of England cutting interest rates and injecting £170 billion of new money into the economy.

Even with this monetary stimulus, the bank has slashed its forecast of economic growth next year to 0.8 per cent – it was 2.2 per cent last year. Given the current uncertainty, I think any of the current economic forecasts are an even bigger stab in the dark than usual.

The correct thing to do in these wobbly circumstances is for the Chancellor to give a lead to the rest of the economy. Which is just what Philip Hammond is not doing. True, he promised to “take any necessary steps to support the economy and promote confidence”, but that was two months ago.

Since then he has done exactly nothing. Instead, he plans to delay announcing any new fiscal plans until the regular Autumn Statement. But this usually takes place in late November or early December. That’s still a long time off when the economy needs action, pronto.

The Bank of England has already been dropping heavy hints that the Treasury needs to get its act together. After the bank cut rates, governor Mark Carney went public to say his job was to steady the economic ship temporarily but that the Chancellor needed to signal the new economic course.

“Monetary policy is more nimble, and it is appropriate to be the first responder to a shock,” Carney said. “[But] the biggest elements of the change are structural. Monetary policy can take those into account, but it can’t really do anything about those structural factors.”

That’s Bank of England code for Chancellor Hammond to sort out infrastructure investment, boost UK productivity and do something about the UK’s massive current-account deficit (ie our lack of exports).

The fundamentals of the UK economy were already weak before Brexit. Now the Chancellor really has to get his finger out. Instead, everything has gone extremely quiet over the summer.

What should be done? Let’s start with consumer spending. The quick way to boost growth is to get consumers to spend more. You do that by putting more spending power in their wallets and purses. Hammond could oblige by cutting VAT, say by 2.5 points or more. Plus you could offer a “cash for clunkers” scheme that gives a Treasury-funded rebate for trading in old, gas-guzzling cars for electric ones.

A fiscal boost to consumer spending has merit at a time when confidence is waning, but it does nothing to address the need for deep-seated economic reform. Indeed, it would probably boost imports rather than exports.

If we are going to give cash directly to individuals, a better approach might be to subsidise child and family care support massively. This does two things. First it frees up more labour for the economy among potentially active and skilled younger people who are currently looking after young children, or disabled or elderly relatives. Second, it would boost the real wages of full-time carers. The latter adds to consumer demand, by the way, plus it creates new, sustainable jobs in the care sector itself.

However, the main fiscal stimulus has to be in infrastructure and manufacturing investment to boost productivity. Fortunately, funding new investment projects is comparatively easy these days because the government can borrow at record cheap rates. UK Government bonds have a yield of only 0.68 per cent for ten years.

We need the equivalent of at least a two per cent of GDP fiscal boost. Some of that can come from green-lighting green energy and telecoms projects. The Treasury’s own National Infrastructure Delivery Plan for 2016-2021 lists 600 projects worth a total of half a trillion pounds. In particular, the UK has a big hole in future energy provision, with the bulk of coal-fired and nuclear generation capacity slated to be closed over the next decade. At the same time, UK dependency on imported fuels and electricity has jumped from 17 per cent to 46 per cent of use since 2000 – a key element in our record current-account deficit.

Note: there is a problem with getting private companies to invest more themselves, as opposed to the state doing the investing. British firms currently are sitting on around £500 billion of idle cash because they can’t figure how to make a profit given deflation. Of course, boosting state project spending will increase orders for construction equipment, steel, and high-tech electronics. We might even tax idle cash to force firms to "use it or lose it". But it would be better to give firms a decent incentive to employ spare cash by raising annual investment and research allowances set against tax. That should be a no-brainer for Hammond’s Autumn Statement.

It goes without saying that the Scottish Government should be empowered by the Treasury to borrow to fund a new wave of post-Brexit investment north of the Border – in roads, rail, broadband, technical research and green energy.

Giving Holyrood control over any post-Brexit fiscal boost would see the job done quicker. At least that seems obvious to me. But Labour north of the Border remains studiously ambivalent about the need to invest more in Scottish infrastructure. Last year, Jackie Baillie, Labour’s Holyrood jobs spokeswoman, was berating the SNP for investing too much: “What the Scottish Government is doing to add to public sector debt is like PFI on steroids.”

I’d expect such comments from a mad free-marketeer.

Even when he gets round to it, I have my doubts that Chancellor Hammond will boost spending sufficiently in the UK – never mind give the Scottish Government freedom to boost infrastructure investment. Yet this is exactly what other big industrial economies are doing. The Japanese have initiated a giant fiscal package worth 5.7 per cent of GDP. In Europe, France and Italy have used Brexit as an excuse to pump prime their economies.

If Hammond won’t give Scotland the right to grow its own economy post Brexit, there is an obvious solution. Take matters into our own hands.