The Government is to spend hundreds of millions of pounds encouraging people to make electric cars that drive themselves. It will spend huge amounts of money to try and incentivise electric vehicles. Then eventually those cars will start driving themselves around the country – with Chancellor Philip Hammond backing a plan to have them making their own way by 2021. Jeremy Corbyn used the news about driverless vehicles to joke about having tested "backseat driving" in the Government, which has been bitterly divided before the Budget. Mr Hammond said the technology was being introduced because the Government saw it as the future.

Philip Hammond vowed to use the Budget to push for driverless cars on the road within years. The Chancellor has made clear his crucial financial package this week will be a rallying cry for Britain to take the lead on technology. Playing down concerns about the safety of self-driving vehicles, Mr Hammond said that after Brexit the UK to be'leading the next industrial revolution'. Alongside removing obstacles to autonomous cars, Mr Hammond is set to announce investment in robotics and 5G internet. He will unveil changes to regulations that will allow developers to test self-driving cars on UK roads for the first time.

Wednesday's Budget will include plans to make the UK the best place to manufacture and road-test driverless cars, the chancellor has said. Writing in the Sun newspaper, Mr Hammond said investment in "exciting new technologies", including in driverless cars, will be announced. This will "prepare the ground" for the cars to be on UK roads by 2021, he said. Mr Hammond said the "inventors dream" will soon become a reality. The technology that allows cars to become more autonomous has been increasing in recent years, with all the main manufacturers now offering some element of driverless technology, including self-parking features and cruise control on motorways.

The Chancellor Philip Hammond said the funds would "keep the UK at the forefront of disruptive technologies". However, the funding was criticised as inadequate by some in the industry, who pointed out that it can cost hundreds of millions of pounds to develop one technology alone. "While of course any investment in our technology industry is welcome, a leading world economy like the UK should be more decisive in its efforts to boost the development of disruptive technologies," said Alfonso Hernandez, the chief executive of language software firm SDL. "A £270m pot to cover everything from artificial intelligence, robotics, driverless cars and new biotech isn't big when you put it into context. The US spent more than $1bn (£820m) on R&D in AI-related technologies alone in 2015. For the UK to be a true global leader in these areas, we must be prepared to provide adequate funding and support."

Funding for research into robotics and a next-generation 5G mobile network, has been announced by Chancellor Philip Hammond as part of his Budget.

Funding for research into robotics and a next-generation 5G mobile network, has been announced by Chancellor Philip Hammond as part of his Budget. He also promised more money to support the development of driverless cars and electric vehicle batteries. The funds for the hi-tech research come from the National Productivity Investment Fund (NPIF), which was announced by the chancellor last year. However, one expert said the money was unlikely to be enough. The promises were welcomed by one robotics lecturer.

The Chancellor Philip Hammond will outline plans in Wednesday's Budget to make hundreds of millions of pounds available to scientists and researchers to develop solutions to hi-tech challenges including artificial intelligence and robotics, next generation batteries and new techniques for manufacturing medicines.

Artificial intelligence and automation are now considered to be amongst the biggest threats to job creation and industry voices across the board agree that so-called traditional jobs may soon cease to exist. According to Infosys' chief executive officer, Vishal Sikka, advances in technology removing a lot of mechanical and scripted jobs, besides many related to business process outsourcing, IT and IT infrastructure operations. But automation will also lead to creation of a new set of jobs, Sikka added. Around 20 crore middle class young people would have no jobs by 2025 if our education system doesn't keep pace with the changes in automation and technology, Mohandas Pai, the chairman of Manipal Global Education Services told BloombergQuint in an interview. And the level of automation is only going to get higher. Both ICICI and HDFC Bank say this is only the start, and there's a lot more to come.