Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news
- Intro: UK borrowed £36.1bn last month – a September record
- National debt over £2trn — highest debt/GDP since 1960
- Inflation rises as Eat Out to Help Out ends
Another astonishing fact – since April, the UK has borrowed almost four times as much as the previous financial year.
The ONS says:
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has had an impact on public sector borrowing that is unprecedented in peacetime.
Provisional estimates indicate that the £208.5 billion borrowed in the first half of the current financial year (April to September 2020) was nearly four times the £54.5 billion borrowed in the whole of the last full financial year (April 2019 to March 2020).
With deft understatement, the ONS points out that the £36bn borrowing in September was ‘substantially’ higher than a year ago (about six times higher!)
