UK funds surplus hit report £16.7 billion in January

LONDON — The U.Okay. logged a report £16.7 billion ($21.1 billion) web funds surplus in January, based on official figures launched on Wednesday.

The Workplace for Nationwide Statistics famous that the nation’s public funds often run a surplus in January, not like throughout different months, as receipts from self-assessed annual earnings tax funds are available in.

Mixed self-assessed earnings and capital beneficial properties tax receipts totaled £33 billion in January, the ONS mentioned, down £1.8 billion from the identical interval of final yr.

Complete authorities tax receipts got here in at a report £90.8 billion, up £2.9 billion in comparison with January 2023.

Authorities borrowing in the course of the monetary yr spanning to the top of January 2024 was £96.6 billion, £3.1 billion decrease than over the identical 10-month interval a yr in the past.

Public debt was estimated at round 96.5% of annual gross home product, up 1.8 proportion factors from January 2023 and holding at ranges final seen within the early Nineteen Sixties, the ONS highlighted.

“We provided hundreds of billions to pay wages, support business and protect lives during Covid, and to pay half of people’s energy bills after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine,” the federal government’s chief secretary to the Treasury, Laura Trott, mentioned in an announcement.

“But we can’t leave future generations to pick up the tab, which is why we have taken tough decisions to help reduce borrowing versus what the OBR expected in March.”

The figures of Wednesday mark the ultimate set of public funds information earlier than Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt delivers the federal government’s Spring Finances, which outlines the fiscal coverage for the yr, on March 6.