Soaring welfare bill pushes UK national debt to almost £3tn

Filed 1mo ago · Via The Telegraph · The Buffoon Desk

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Dissappointment

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Rijksmuseum · CC0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Britain's national debt climbed to £2.985tn in July after a surprise £1.8bn deficit, driven by a 7.2 percent jump in benefit payments to £30bn, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Economists had forecast the government would need to borrow nothing that month, making the shortfall an unwelcome surprise rather than a predictable trend.

Chancellor John Healey spent £7.7bn on debt interest in July alone and now faces another tax-raising Budget in October, with strong receipts from self-employed workers offering only partial relief.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Forecasting zero borrowing and landing on a £1.8bn deficit is the kind of miss that would get a weather presenter fired, yet in fiscal policy it simply becomes the backdrop for the next Budget speech. The debt interest bill alone, £7.7bn in a single month, is a reminder that promises to fix the public finances tend to cost money before they save any.

Source: Read the original at The Telegraph → Scored: Dissappointment · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0