UK government borrowing falls to £6.8bn in April

Thrugelmir

The downward trend continues in the right direction as forecast.

UK government borrowing fell to £6.8bn in April, down from £9.3bn a year earlier, official figures show.
It is the lowest April government borrowing figure since April 2008, when public borrowing stood at £2.5bn.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) also revised its previous estimate of borrowing for the full financial year up slightly to £87.7bn, from £87.3bn.
But that was still comfortably below the government's target of £90.3bn.
As it is the start of the financial year, little can be gleaned from the public borrowing figures as yet.
And as the ONS itself warned on Friday, borrowing figures in the first few months of the financial year are often subject to revisions.
In his March Budget, Chancellor George Osborne forecast public sector net borrowing would amount to £75.3bn this financial year.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32841016

CLAPTON

the debt increases

(much applause from the SNP, Labour and LibDems, Greens etc)

cells

CLAPTON wrote: »

the debt increases

the savings increases too

cant have one without the other

CLAPTON

cells wrote: »

the savings increases too

cant have one without the other

Yes indeed debt and savings are opposite sides of the same coin.

I do agree that some sort of debt isn't a bad thing.

Who benefits from the increase in saving and who suffers from the increase in debt?
Is there any amount of debt that is too much?
Is debt to foreigners better or worse that debts to the people of the UK?
Should government incur debt because it a good thing to encourage saving?
Does government debt crowd out companies wanting to borrow to invest or expand?
Does the interest paid out by government a good or bad thing?

Thrugelmir

CLAPTON wrote: »

the debt increases

That's stating the obvious.

CLAPTON

Thrugelmir wrote: »

That's stating the obvious.

you didn't thank my post

michaels

Thrugelmir wrote: »

That's stating the obvious.

Really obvious? I thought according to the SNP we don't need to do any more 'austerity' ie reducing the deficit.

lvader

Remember that while it's Scottish oil, it's UK's debt!

Thrugelmir

michaels wrote: »

Really obvious? I thought according to the SNP we don't need to do any more 'austerity' ie reducing the deficit.

Easy to have a view on something. Building credibility by actually managing something is far harder. The SNP sit firmly in the former at the moment.

patman99

It must be hard being in charge of balancing the UK's finances.

When Labour took control in 1997, the deficit was £38Bn and the amount we had borrowed was £900Bn. They concentrated on the borrowing but failed to keep an eye on the deficit.
The Coalition inherited a deficit of £78Bn, but only £400Bn in borrowing. Within 5 years, the Tories had borrowed over £1Tn, but had reduced the deficit.

chewmylegoff

patman99 wrote: »

It must be hard being in charge of balancing the UK's finances.

When Labour took control in 1997, the deficit was £38Bn and the amount we had borrowed was £900Bn. They concentrated on the borrowing but failed to keep an eye on the deficit.
The Coalition inherited a deficit of £78Bn, but only £400Bn in borrowing. Within 5 years, the Tories had borrowed over £1Tn, but had reduced the deficit.

Not sure where you are getting your numbers from. Public sector net debt was about £400bn in 1997 and rose to £900bn by 2010 when the coalition came to power. The budget deficit in the last year of the Labour government - 2009/10 - was about £170 billion.