UK Borrowing Surges as Covid Pushes National Debt to Record £2.024tn
LONDON (The Guardian) - Government borrowing hit almost £36bn in August to push the UK‘s national debt to a record £2.024tn - more than the value of the UK economy – with the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic weighing heavily on the public finances.
The monthly borrowing figure – a record for August – follows unprecedented spending by the government to combat the coronavirus and sent the accumulated borrowing for the first five months of the fiscal year to almost £174bn. That is the highest level for the period since the Office for National Statistics records began in 1993 and overtakes the total borrowed in an entire year at the peak of the financial crisis.
However, the deficit in August was £2bn lower than analysts expected and £8bn below the amount the Office for Budget Responsibility estimated earlier this year when it forecast the likely gap between government spending and income.
Borrowing picked up in August as the government paid out £4.7bn to cover some of the lost income of self-employed workers and spent more than £500m to cover the cost of the Treasury’s eat out to help out scheme. A VAT cut for the hospitality sector meant that overall sales tax receipts were £3.7bn lower than in August 2019.
The monthly borrowing figure – a record for August – follows unprecedented spending by the government to combat the coronavirus and sent the accumulated borrowing for the first five months of the fiscal year to almost £174bn. That is the highest level for the period since the Office for National Statistics records began in 1993 and overtakes the total borrowed in an entire year at the peak of the financial crisis.
However, the deficit in August was £2bn lower than analysts expected and £8bn below the amount the Office for Budget Responsibility estimated earlier this year when it forecast the likely gap between government spending and income.
Borrowing picked up in August as the government paid out £4.7bn to cover some of the lost income of self-employed workers and spent more than £500m to cover the cost of the Treasury’s eat out to help out scheme. A VAT cut for the hospitality sector meant that overall sales tax receipts were £3.7bn lower than in August 2019.