{"id":5637,"date":"2024-07-09T02:12:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-09T02:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.asadkarim.co.uk\/?p=5637"},"modified":"2024-07-08T09:15:43","modified_gmt":"2024-07-08T09:15:43","slug":"uk-national-debt-interest-payments-102bn-a-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.asadkarim.co.uk\/?p=5637","title":{"rendered":"UK National Debt. Interest Payments \u00a3102bn a year."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a>
Courtesy of the Office of Budget Responsibility (The OBR)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the financial year 2023\/24, government revenue \u2013 from taxes and other receipts \u2013 was \u00a31,095 billion (\u00a31.1 trillion) while government spending was \u00a31,216 billion (\u00a31.2 trillion). The deficit was therefore \u00a3121 billion, equivalent to 4.4% of GDP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interest payments on government\u2019s past borrowing are a relatively big cost for government. In 2023\/24, government\u2019s net debt interest spending was
\u00a3102 billion, which is equivalent to 3.8% of GDP or 8.4% of government spending.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Borrowing of \u00a3121 billion is equivalent to around \u00a31,780 per head of the UK\u2019s population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The deficit reached a peacetime record in 2020\/21 of 15% of GDP, largely for two reasons:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(1) Government provided support to public services, households and businesses during the pandemic, which cost around \u00a3229 billion;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(2) The virus and the lockdowns aimed at slowing its spread took the economy into a severe recession. Less economic activity meant smaller tax receipts and more government spending on areas such as unemployment benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The budget deficit is financed by the sale of government bonds. These are essentially interest paying \u201cIOUs\u201d which the government sells to investors. Purchasers of government bonds include pension funds, insurance companies, households and overseas investors. The bonds make up most government debt. Once the bonds have been bought, they can be traded by investors on so-called secondary markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of 2023\/24 public sector net debt was \u00a32,690 billion (i.e. \u00a32.6 trillion), or 98% of GDP. This is equivalent to around \u00a337,900 per person in the UK.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/commonslibrary.parliament.uk\/research-briefings\/sn06167\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the financial year 2023\/24, government revenue \u2013 from taxes and other receipts \u2013 was \u00a31,095 billion (\u00a31.1 trillion) while government spending was \u00a31,216 billion (\u00a31.2 trillion). The deficit was therefore \u00a3121 billion, equivalent to 4.4% of GDP. Interest payments on government\u2019s past borrowing are a relatively big cost for government. In 2023\/24, government\u2019s net […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asadkarim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asadkarim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asadkarim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asadkarim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asadkarim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5637"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.asadkarim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5639,"href":"https:\/\/www.asadkarim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5637\/revisions\/5639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asadkarim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asadkarim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asadkarim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}