#government-borrowing

#government-borrowing

Public sector net borrowing the difference between spending and income was 11.6bn last month, the Office for National Statistics said, compared with 18.7bn in the same month a year earlier. Economists polled by Reuters had expected borrowing to be 13bn in December. The figure is closely watched by the City as it shows how much the government is borrowing to finance its spending plans and whether it is exceeding its target for the year.

For the first six months of the financial year, total borrowing now stands close to £99.8bn, 13.1% higher than at the same point last year and on course to overshoot the OBR's March forecast. The rise reflects a toxic mix of high debt interest payments, still-inflated public sector wage costs, and weak tax receipts from income, property, and corporate profits. Meanwhile, sluggish GDP growth is keeping revenue subdued, even as spending on health, education, and local services remains under pressure.

The UK's public finances are deteriorating at speed and history shows that when the Treasury faces a fiscal crunch, pensioners are treated as low-hanging fruit. From post-war retrenchment to the stealth pension taxes of the 1990s and the allowance freezes of the past decade, successive governments have repeatedly tapped retirement savings to fill the gap. They typically see pensions as 'low hanging fruit', and there's every reason to expect a repeat in November.

There is a lot of dramatic commentary on this but I wouldn't exaggerate the 30-year bond rate, he said. It's a number that gets quoted a lot. It's quite a high number. It is actually not a number that is being used for funding at all at the moment.