Slow-Growing UK Faces Reckoning Over £2.6 Trillion Debt Pile
- Amount Britain owes exceeds GDP for first time since 1960s
- Inflation-linked bonds mean country is paying more than peers
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Economics
Slow-Growing UK Faces Reckoning Over £2.6 Trillion Debt Pile
- Amount Britain owes exceeds GDP for first time since 1960s
- Inflation-linked bonds mean country is paying more than peers
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By Tom Rees, Alice Gledhill, and Philip Aldrick
August 19, 2023 at 12:00 PM GMT+8
From the financial crisis to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Britain has borrowed and spent its way out of every jam. The bill for that is becoming a worry all its own.
The UK’s public debt load has soared by more than 40% to almost £2.6 trillion ($3.3 trillion) since the pandemic struck, leaving the country owing more than its entire annual economic output for the first time since 1961. A heavy reliance on index-linked bonds at a time of high inflation also means Britain will pay more to service liabilities than any other advanced economy.
