Government borrowing £15.7 bln in November says ONS
Wednesday, 21 December 2011 09:50
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has issued its latest figures for the public sector net borrowing requirement (PSNBR) which shows that the government had to borrow £15.7 billion in November 2011, down from £17.4 billion in the same period a year earlier.
So far, in the first eight months of this financial year the government has borrowed £84 billion.
The PSNBR for November was £18.1 billion, down from £20.4 billion in November 2010. This takes the net debt of the government up to £977.1 billion or 62.8 per cent of GDP.
The total debt was £853.9 billion in November 2010, meaning there has been a rise of £123.2 billion in the last 12 months.
The monthly deficit of £18.1 billion which excludes the temporary effects of financial interventions was slightly lower than many experts expected, with a figure of £19 billion the consensus before the ONS published today’s figures.
It is going to be hard for the Chancellor, George Osborne to meet his target of reducing the public debt as rising unemployment is expected in 2012 that will reduce tax revenues and increase the cost of benefits to the government.
The coalition is also under increasing pressure to invest in infrastructure projects in a bid to find elusive growth, the one thing that all parties see as vital to ensuring the UK avoids a double-dip recession.
The government’s target for total borrowing for the 2011-12 financial year was £122 billion but Mr Osborne revised this upwards to £127 billion in his autumn statement last month.
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