United Kingdom national debt

rdf:langString United Kingdom national debt

rdf:langString The United Kingdom national debt is the total quantity of money borrowed by the Government of the United Kingdom at any time through the issue of securities by the British Treasury and other government agencies. At the end of December 2021, UK General government gross debt was £2,382.8 billion, or 102.8% of Gross domestic product, the second lowest in the G7 while 14.6% above the average of the EU member states at that time. Approximately a third of the UK National Debt is owned by the British government due to the Bank of England's quantitative easing programme, so approximately a third of the cost of servicing the debt is paid by the government to itself. In 2018, this reduced the annual servicing cost to approximately £30 billion (approx 2% of GDP, approx 5% of UK government tax income). In 2017, due to the Government's budget deficit (PSNCR), the national debt increased by £46 billion. The Cameron–Clegg coalition government in 2010 planned that they would eliminate the deficit by the 2015/16 financial year. However, by 2014 they admitted that the structural deficit would not be eliminated until the financial year 2017/18. This forecast was pushed back to 2018/19 in March 2015, and to 2019/20 in July 2015, before the target of a return to surplus at any particular time was finally abandoned by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne in July 2016.