Download Britain’s national debt is now over £700 years

Britain’s national debt is now over £700
billion, the highest level in more than 30
years
In 1979, net national debt was 49.1% of GDP according to figures
produced from the Office for National Statistics at the end of 2008.
The UK’s net debt reached £697.5 billion last December, equivalent to
47.5% of our GDP. In the Chancellor’s autumn statement of 2008, he
predicted that national debt will increase to £1,000 million by 2012,
and that by 2012–13 debt as a proportion of GDP will have risen to
57.4%.
The UK currently comes eighteenth out of 28 countries in the
Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development rich
country league table, but if the Chancellor’s predictions are accurate,
the UK will rise to fourth in the league table. National debt has
spiraled since the recapitalization of the banking sector. Government
borrowing in the last financial year was £71.2 billion, 92% higher than
at the same point in the previous year when borrowing was £37 billion.
In February 2009, the Office for National Statistics reported that it
expected to have to add between £1 trillion and £1.5 trillion to the
UK’s public sector net debt, taking the total national debt to an
unprecedented £2.2 trillion – just under 150% of GDP. This would be
the worst debt total since the 1950s, when Britain was in the process of
paying back its war debts. ‘Spending will rise sharply over the coming
months as unemployment surges, while the deep contraction in activity
will continue to reduce tax revenues,’ said Andrew Goodwin, senior
economic adviser to the Ernst & Young ITEM Club. ‘We expect the
Chancellor to be forced to make significant upward revisions to his
borrowing projections when he presents the Budget. ITEM expects
Public Sector Net Borrowing to rise above £130bn in 2009/10.’