Anyone who had taken their Cheltenham winnings and bet big on the number of mentions of his "long-term economic plan" in the Chancellor's speech would have been disappointed.

There were only three.

However, in the line that most caught my ear George Osborne said the government's goal is for Britain to be the most prosperous major economy in the world. That is precisely the ambition that the UK should set itself. At present, we are some way adrift. On average, people in Australia, Austria, Norway, Switzerland and the US are £8,000 per year better off than the typical person in the UK. For Scotland, the figure is closer to £8,500.

They have no divine right to have incomes so much higher than ours. They possess no secret formula for success, no magic bullet. Almost all of the gap is down to them being more productive than we are.

Bridging the gap is a challenge worth accepting and it is a prize that can be won. It will take a long-term commitment and, above all, a focus on investing in assets: people, infrastructure - from roads and machines to buildings and broadband - and the knowledge that lies behind innovation.

When we get there, people can have more money in their pockets and services from schools to healthcare can be higher quality and better funded.

There is also a very direct benefit to the government's finances. The Office for Budget Responsibility scrutinises the government's plans. Its calculations show the crucial difference that boosting productivity makes to the fiscal outlook. Even a modest acceleration in productivity growth that allows the economy to expand faster means the deficit is eliminated more quickly.

Some of the measures announced yesterday are important steps in the right direction. There is clear evidence that broadband provision can boost wages and profits, especially in cities. So, the commitment to near-universal broadband is welcome.

Investment in research - from more PhDs to the Internet of Things - could put the UK in a better position to adopt leading technologies. We have four of the world's top 200 universities in Scotland and our higher education sector is well-placed to support this effort.

Driverless cars are no longer in the realm of science fiction. Research into them will receive some of the £100 million of support for the automotive industry. The potential of this technology is vast, perhaps, in time, removing the need for multi-billion pound projects like High Speed 2. In that future world, the M74, and even the A1, could be genuine super highways for Scotland.

However, many of these measures are funded only for 2015-16. The constraints on the public finances mean that there simply isn't the cash available to make spending commitments on these areas for years into the future. What's more, overall public sector investment will fall in 2015-16 and begins to grow in line with national income only in 2018-19. By 2019-20 it will be 10% below its 2010-11 level.

Or, to put it differently, it is the judgement of the Chancellor and his colleagues that we the voters would prefer any spare cash to be spent on the modest tax cuts announced yesterday.

That is our choice to make and John Maynard Keynes memorably warned of wishing too much for "jam tomorrow" when we could have "jam today".

Yet, as we reflect on the Budget and the election to come, we should give our politicians the support and courage to aim for the long-term goal. It would mean some combination of higher taxes and less spending on public services today, entailing difficult choices. The dividend would be living standards in a few years materially higher than they are today. Getting there needs a very long-term plan indeed.

* Stephen Boyle is head of economics at Royal Bank of Scotland.