UK borrowing rises to worse-than-expected £18bn in August | Government borrowing

According to official figures, the British government borrowed more than expected last month and contributed to the pressure on the Treasury until the autumn budget.

The National Statistics Office (Ones) figures, public sector net borrowing – public expenditures and income difference – in August 18 billion £ £ £ £ £ $ £ 3.5 billion compared to the same month of 3.5 billion £.

Reading was over £ 12.75 billion open and over city forecasts for estimates for the budget responsibility of £ 12.5 billion.

Ones Chief Economist Grant Fitzner said the figure is the highest August borrowing sum since the height of Covid Pandememi. “Although general tax and national insurance receipts have increased significantly last year, these increases are behind with higher expenditures for public services, benefits and debt interest.”

The total borrowing for the financial year, above upward revisions for the previous months, rose to £ 83.8 billion, which has been the highest level since 2020. The total was £ 16 billion higher than 2024 and over £ 72.4 billion from OBR.

The chancellor Rachel Reeves is expected to offer a package of tax increase in order to balance the economic forecasts that worsen in the November 26 budget and to attach a gap that some estimates may be £ 40 billion.

“Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, who are very weak and distracted to realize the action to reduce the deficit, have lost control of public finances and Labor’s weakness, the weakness of Labor, means that the weakness of the very needed welfare reforms were abandoned.”

The borrowing figures come one day after the UK Bank changed interest rates to 4%, and backward the billions of pound bond destruction plan to avoid distorting tense financial markets.

The UK’s long -term borrowing costs reached the highest level in 27 years, largely caused by global factors, but the investor is also concerned about the power of the UK economy and public finances. However, the state’s program of reducing the state bond stock, known as the Bank’s “quantitative tightening”, has also played a role.

As increasing borrowing costs, wage increases and inflation costs, it contributed to the pressure on government financing as well as higher levels of expenditure on public services and benefits.

Ones said the central government debt interest rate in August £ 8.4 billion and was 1.9 billion higher than the same month of the previous year, he said.

PWC UK economist Nabil demanded that: “The political difficulty of cutting high borrowings and expenditures for months destroyed the ceiling of the chancellor.

“Gilding returns, which are the effective cost of the financing of government debt, have also increased to the highest levels for decades this month. Wider economic conditions offer little relief.”