Revealed: Britain is borrowing £1billion every DAY to keep the economy afloat with national debt now at £2.13trillion
- The Government has borrowed £270.8billion in total so far this fiscal year
- The figure is expected to reach £393.5billion when the financial year ends
- Chancellor Rishi Sunak under pressure ahead of the Budget on March 3
The UK is borrowing £1billion a day to keep the economy afloat as the cost of the pandemic mounts.
Bleak figures from the Office for National Statistics showed in December alone the Government borrowed £34.1billion, the third-highest figure ever for a single month.
It means the Government has borrowed £270.8billion so far this fiscal year, a figure that is expected to reach £393.5billion when the financial year ends in March.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak is under pressure ahead of the Budget in March as the Government continues to borrow money
Total national debt is now £2.13trillion, leaving the debt to GDP ratio at 99.4 per cent. It is the country’s largest debt burden since the early-1960s.
The figures put Chancellor Rishi Sunak under serious pressure, less than two months before the Budget on March 3.
He said: ‘Since the start of the pandemic we’ve invested over £280billion to protect jobs and livelihoods.
‘Once our economy begins to recover, we should look to return the public finances to a more sustainable footing.’
Samuel Tombs, of consultancy Pantheon Macroeconomics, said: ‘We expect taxes to rise sharply in 2022, in order to attempt to stabilise the debt to GDP ratio, while at the same time funding increases in health and pensions spending.’