UK debt smashes past £3 trillion as Labour borrowing explodes

Britain’s national debt has smashed through the £3 trillion barrier for the first time after government borrowing soared again last month, leaving every household on the hook for £103,448.

Labour shelled out a record £10.9 billion in debt interest payments while continuing record spending, even as the costs spiked ever higher. The £24.5 billion monthly borrowing total, fuelled by Andy Burnham’s tax and spend policies, arrived as inflation also rose by more than expected in September and desperate households battled higher fuel costs and the cost of living crisis.

Reform UK Shadow Chancellor Robert Jenrick blasted: “We simply cannot carry on like this. Debt is out of control and the tax burden is at post-war highs. Reform has laid out a plan to save more than £80 billion a year. We’d use that to cut the debt and cut taxes. We can achieve both by making the hard choices: take control of the welfare bill, end Net Zero vanity projects, and scrap foreign aid to rich countries.”

Jenrick warned Chancellor John Healey, due to deliver his first Budget next week, will instead choose to bury his head in the sand. The staggering figures released by the Office for National Statistics show public sector net borrowing this year so far at £97.8 billion, £6 billion higher than expected.

With interest rates soaring, the cost of public borrowing has never been higher. Every household in the country paid nearly £400 last month just servicing the Government’s enormous debt pile. So far during this financial year debt interest payments stand at £61 billion, enough to pay for 1.1 million nurses. Taxpayers are paying a terrifying price for Whitehall’s addiction to spending.

Britain cannot keep writing blank cheques while the bill lands on ordinary families. The country needs firm control of the welfare bill and an end to vanity projects that do nothing for growth. Only then can debt fall and taxes ease for the people who actually pay them.

Darwin Friend, research director at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Passing the grim milestone of £3 trillion in national debt is a damning indictment of decades of fiscal failure. With debt interest soaring and borrowing overshooting forecasts yet again, taxpayers are paying a terrifying price for Whitehall’s addiction to spending. Instead of hiking taxes, the chancellor must use his first budget to get a grip on the public finances by making immediate cuts to Britain’s ballooning welfare bill.”

Tax burden hits historic high

The tax burden, tax revenue as a proportion of GDP, is now at nearly 38 percent, the highest rate in history. Yet Healey is expected to raise taxes even further next week in a bid to meet his fiscal rules. Total public spending was up by 7 percent in September when tax receipts rose by only 5.2 percent, the ONS said.

Reform Daily reports the numbers leave no room for more of the same. Households already stretched by the cost of living crisis now watch interest on the national debt swallow cash that could fund real services. The next Budget will show whether ministers finally face the arithmetic or keep piling pressure on the same taxpayers.

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Original source: Reform Daily