The UK National Debt is the total amount of money the British government owes. The UK government borrows from creditors who buy gilts (UK Sovereign Bonds). Thus the ability for the UK to bridge the gap from its public expenditure and its tax revenue comes from the fact it is able to borrow on the fixed income (bond) market.<\/p>\n
In 2014, the public sector net debt was \u00a31,268.7 billion<\/strong>, this is just over 75%<\/strong> of gross domestic product (GDP). [UK GDP is about \u00a31673 Billion (approx.)]<\/strong><\/p>\n But let\u2019s keep things in context:<\/p>\n Japan<\/strong> for example has a National debt of 225%<\/strong>, Also after Second World War, the UK debt\u00a0 was over 180% of GDP.<\/p>\n However with all borrowings, the interest is an issue, one has to pay interest on the debt. In the next 5 years this is the estimate on what could have to be paid:<\/p>\n 2014-15: \u00a352 Billion<\/strong> These are huge numbers, on money that brings no economic benefits such as creating jobs. It is just payments to creditors.<\/p>\n The only way to reduce the debt is via economic expansion and government spending cuts.<\/p>\n Final point on government debt, perhaps the number is higher, if you consider PFI programmes, or perhaps pensions that the government is obliged to pay and the liabilities of bank loans from the old Northern Rock (now UKAR) it has to guarantee. So perhaps the UK National Debt is actually well over 100% of GDP<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The UK National Debt is the total amount of money the British government owes. The UK government borrows from creditors who buy gilts (UK Sovereign Bonds). Thus the ability for the UK to bridge the gap from its public expenditure and its tax revenue comes from the fact it is able to borrow on the […]<\/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-608","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\/608","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=608"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.asadkarim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":609,"href":"https:\/\/www.asadkarim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608\/revisions\/609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asadkarim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asadkarim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asadkarim.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nItaly<\/strong> is over 100%<\/strong>.
\nUS<\/strong> is about 100%<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nThus the cost of National debt is the interest the government has to pay on the gilts it auctions.<\/p>\n
\n2015-16: \u00a357 Billion<\/strong>
\n2016-17: \u00a362 Billion<\/strong>
\n2017-18: \u00a368 Billion<\/strong><\/p>\n