The Budget: ifs, buts, maybes...and a debt mountain

There could be some good stuff for the East Midlands economy IF the Government lives up to its promise to promote and invest in sectors like advanced manufacturing, biotechnology, the creative industries, and environmental technologies.
How come?
Advanced manufacturing is areas like aerospace, automotive – the East Midlands has giants like Rolls-Royce, Toyota and Bombardier and the army of smaller engineering firms that supply them.
Biotechnology is the industry embodied by Nottingham's own BioCity and all the research and development work done at the likes of the University of Nottingham. It could assist the growth of plans to develop a medipark of businesses near the Queen's Medical Centre.
The creative industries are an emerging sector in Nottingham that range all the way from the fashion stars of the future being nurtured by Nottingham Trent University (which has one of the best fashion courses in the country) to the film directors of today (Shane Meadows).
Environmental technologies? We already have the much-vaunted Environmental Technologies Institute only a few miles down the road from here in Loughborough. It could and should play a key role in helping the UK establish itself as a world leader here.
BUT...I'd love to know exactly what support the Government is going to provide when it is staring at a debt mountain of Everest proportions that will sit on the UK economy's back like an elephant for years.
People who work in finance are stunned by the £700bn the Government says it's going to borrow, and not yet convinced there is a plausible plan to pay it back because they think the Government's growth forecasts for the future are way too optimistic.
This could be a significant drag on economic growth, and my hunch is that our overseas partnerships with countries like China (hats off to the University of Nottingham, again) will become more and more significant to our prospects.
MAY BE the fact that the fat-cat days are over will mean we'll all face up to the fact that we are entering an era when collaboration rather than profit-taking is the order of the day.
UPDATE: A trawl of the Treasury website reveals some of the early devil in the detail...
The car scrappage scheme announcement: a £2,000 discount off a new car if you trade in a 10year-old banger sounds pretty good, but what the Chancellor didn't say is that the scheme will be "co-funded with the industry". So this isn't free money for car companies.
And how will it work? Does it apply only to certain types of car, is it off the list price or the deal you negotiate, does the dealer get £2,000 from the Government or have to claim it (which could affect their cash flow), do you pay tax on the original price or the discounted price? We don't know yet.
One measure there's no doubt about is the 2p rise in fuel duty due later this year. So get that discount on a car that sips the juice.
The Low Carbon Economy: with £700bn in borrowing this will presumably be achieved by fuelling power stations on pound notes...