{"id":144258,"date":"2018-06-21T09:55:11","date_gmt":"2018-06-21T09:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/uk-government-borrowing-falls-more-than-expected\/"},"modified":"2018-06-21T09:55:11","modified_gmt":"2018-06-21T09:55:11","slug":"uk-government-borrowing-falls-more-than-expected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/uk-government-borrowing-falls-more-than-expected\/","title":{"rendered":"UK government borrowing falls more than expected"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Money\"Image copyright Getty Images <\/figure>\n

Public sector borrowing fell to \u00a35bn in May, down \u00a32bn from a year earlier, official figures show.<\/p>\n

The fall was bigger than expected and brings borrowing for the financial year to date to \u00a311.8bn, \u00a34.1bn less than in the same period in 2017.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revised down its figure for government borrowing in 2017-18 to \u00a339.5bn.<\/p>\n

The total was the lowest annual level of borrowing in 11 years.<\/p>\n

The figures come as Chancellor Philip Hammond prepares to reaffirm his promise to reduce public debt, despite Prime Minister Theresa May's promise of increased spending on the NHS.<\/p>\n

In a speech later on Thursday, Mr Hammond will say that taxes must rise, although increases will be implemented in a "fair and balanced way".<\/p>\n

Public sector net debt, excluding public sector banks, was \u00a31,781.4bn at the end of last month, equivalent to 85% of GDP, the ONS said.<\/p>\n

That is \u00a344.7bn higher than a year earlier, but 0.4 percentage points lower as a percentage of GDP.<\/p>\n

Analysis: Kamal Ahmed, economics editor<\/strong><\/p>\n

As the chancellor grapples with how to raise \u00a320bn of extra spending on the NHS in England by 2023, today's public finance figures do provide some help.<\/p>\n

Borrowing is lower than forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility in March, giving Philip Hammond a little more "wriggle room" whilst still hitting his target of reducing the deficit - the amount of money the government spends above the amount it gains in revenues from taxes and investment.<\/p>\n

The chancellor knows that as the public finances begin to look healthier, pressure will grow to open the borrowing taps - thereby enabling more spending on not just health, but the police and defence, for example.<\/p>\n

But that misunderstands Mr Hammond's economic DNA.<\/p>\n

At \u00a31.8tn, or 85% of the value of the total UK economy, the chancellor believes Britain's debts are still too high.<\/p>\n

Yes, they might be falling as a proportion of the overall economy, but they are still double the levels before the financial crisis.<\/p>\n

Levels so high that Britain remains exposed to risks in the event of another significant economic downturn, Mr Hammond believes.<\/p>\n

If that were to happen - and the first few months of the year have been economically weaker than many expected - then the better state of the public finances announced today could soon sour.<\/p>\n

"May's public finances figures not only confirmed that the new fiscal year got off to a good start, but revealed that borrowing in 2017-18 was also a little lower than previously thought," said Andrew Wishart, UK economist at Capital Economics.<\/p>\n

"It's early days yet, but if this is sustained, borrowing would undershoot the [Office for Budget Responsibility's] 2018-19 forecast by \u00a39bn or so over the year as a whole. <\/p>\n

"What's more, if the economy holds up as we expect, borrowing is likely to undershoot the OBR's forecast by a more significant margin in subsequent years. <\/p>\n

"This would allow the chancellor to deliver the recently promised increase in health spending over the next five years while still meeting his fiscal target."<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image copyright Getty Images Public sector borrowing fell to \u00a35bn in May, down \u00a32bn from a year earlier, official figures show. The fall was bigger than expected and brings borrowing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":144259,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-144258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}