UK public borrowing fall: four reasons not to gloat
by Larry Elliott from on (#9HQ0)
There are many good reasons why the government offered a guarded welcome to the better than expected deficit for April
No short cuts. Plenty of hard work left to do. That was the Treasury response to news that public borrowing in April was 27% down on the same month a year earlier. A guarded welcome rather than jubilation was the order of the day.
Why the cautious response? There are four main reasons. The first is that the deficit is a lot higher than the government would like it to be - at 87bn in 2014-15 it was 50bn more than George Osborne forecast when he first became chancellor in 2010.
Related: UK budget deficit narrows after boost from taxes and duties
Continue reading...