UK public borrowing higher than expected in April

Thrugelmir

Kennyboy66 wrote: »

Ridiculous - It wasn't what I meant at all.

Comment wasn't directed at you. More of an observation on attitude's I have encountered.

The issues in the UK economy are structural so will take time to resolve.

What's required is capital investment. Which will create wider economic activity.

Majority of the items you list will save business money, but not create new jobs.

StevieJ

lemonjelly wrote: »

Sir Humphrey, just say it.

Then say "We are premier league!!":D

The second leg of the real treble in the bag last night for United

ILW

Pennywise wrote: »

. That's something that the likes of Gordon Brown could never see - everything he did was the "right thing" in simple theory, but most of it went badly wrong with unforeseen consequences.

Odd thing was, that most outside of his little ivory tower, did forsee the consequences.

michaels

Could anyone post up whether it was expenditure which surprised on the upside or tax receipts on the downside?

Presumably the caps on housing benefit and the shift of claimants to JSA from IB will take a while to filter through (for example JSA is payable for several months before it starts to get withdrawn if there is no real job-seeking) April is in to the new Govt FY so the cuts to govt departments should start to feed through in govt expenditure but again who knows how this works - perhaps redundancy payments are bumping up expenditure at the start of the year?

On the tax side corporate tax revenue and energy taxes tend to be very volatile as companies offset previous losses etc so one months figures are not that good an indication.

Thrugelmir

michaels wrote: »

Could anyone post up whether it was expenditure which surprised on the upside or tax receipts on the downside?

The ONS said tax receipts fell year on year, which had been boosted to the tune of £3.5 billion a year earlier by the tax on bankers' bonuses.
However, there was some good news for the Government as borrowing figures for the year to March 2011 were revised downwards to £139.4 billion, from £141.1 billion.
This was mainly caused by tax receipts being boosted after VAT was hiked to 20% from 17.5% previously, said the ONS.
But the higher-than-expected borrowing in April pushed the Government's debt to a record £910.1 billion, or 60.1% of GDP.
A spokesman for the Treasury said: "One-off factors affected borrowing this month, but it is clear from the downward revision to last year's borrowing figures that the Government's deficit reduction strategy is making headway in dealing with our unsustainable deficit."
Spending in April was 5% higher than a year ago at £54.1 billion. This was mainly caused by a 26% rise in interest payments to £1 billion as the Government services its growing debts and interest rates rise along with inflation. Tax receipts came down 0.8% to £42.9 billion, mainly as a result of income from the bank bonus the year before.

http://www.pressassociation.com/component/pafeeds/2011/05/24/borrowing_figure_blow_to_government?camefrom=home

michaels

So inflation is not the cure-all some foresaw - negligable wage growth but inflation uprated benefits (and not to mention inflation's impact on borrowing costs) are adding to the budgetary squeeze.

Some would argue that may be those on benefits should also share the pain of real terms falls in disposable income?

LauraW10

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

I am really having to try hard not to say [STRIKE]I told you so[/STRIKE].

Me too...

Useless Tories

LauraW10

Generali wrote: »

The Tories have basically stuck to what Labour were going to do so far. Fiscal policies promised at the last election only diverge significantly now.

Blah blah blah... it's all the labour parties fault.... blah, blah, blah

lemonjelly

Thrugelmir wrote: »

May be visiting you next season..........

How's Doyle played this year?

Sent you a PM to avoid me clogging up yet another thread!:o

Thrugelmir

LauraW10 wrote: »

Blah blah blah... it's all the labour parties fault.... blah, blah, blah

13 years of economic policy created the UK as it is today........ on its knees.