Nowadays much of it gets dribbled out days in advance and over the weekend there was an eye-catching leak – or rather Treasury press release – about new money for technology.
The most striking element of a package which included £75m for artificial intelligence research, £160m for new 5G mobile phone networks and £100m to train more computer science teachers, was the Chancellor's plan to bring driverless cars to the roads.
It was not the fact that he saw this as a vital technology where the UK could be a leader which surprised me – we have plenty of groundbreaking research under way – but the timescale for this autonomous driving future.
The government is promising "bold reforms" to encourage a driverless car industry which its press release says "will be worth £28bn to the UK economy by 2035."
A startling figure in itself but then there is this:
"These measures will help realise the Chancellor's vision that fully self-driving cars will be on UK roads in as little as three years." (Read More: BBC)