National debt shoots up by £1400 for every person in the country

The national debt rose by £1400 for every person in Britain last year, official figures showed today.

The latest snapshot of the public finances from the Office for National Statistics showed debt hitting a mammoth £1.7 trillion in December 2016, a rise of £91.5 billion on a year earlier.

The UK added to its debt pile at a rate of £251 million a day to leave the nation’s 65.1 million people carrying an extra £1400 in debt each.

As a share of the economy the national debt is 86.2% of GDP, up 1.7 percentage points on a year earlier.

Pound’s Article 50 rally

THE pound staged a short-lived rally against the euro and the dollar today as currency markets digested the Government’s defeat over the triggering of Article 50 negotiations for leaving the EU.

A Supreme Court ruling that Theresa May needs Parliamentary approval to begin negotiations — seen as a potential check on a “hard Brexit” — briefly sent sterling up more than a cent against both currencies before it fell away. Labour will not to block Article 50, so the verdict is unlikely to affect the Brexit timetable.

“We presume the Government will make the Bill as simple as possible with no option on giving Parliament a say on the strategy,” ING Bank’s James Knightley said.

According to the Office for Budget Responsibility this benchmark will rise above 90% next year but Chancellor Philip Hammond is only committed to putting debt as a share of the economy on a downward course by 2020/21 under looser fiscal rules.

There was better news on borrowing as the UK deficit fell to £6.9 billion in December.

Overall, in the nine months to December, the public sector borrowed £63.8 billion, £10.6 billion lower than the same period a year earlier.

For the financial year to date, tax receipts are up 4.8% compared with a much smaller 1.4% growth in spending.

Capital Economics economist Scott Bowman said: “Receipts growth has been on a slight upward trend since May, adding to the evidence that the economy has held up well following the vote to leave the EU.”