By: William Yarwood, media campaign manager
We at the TaxPayers’ Alliance have never shied away from talking about the national debt. Recently we re-launched our debt clock campaign along with a new online debt clock tool which shows our national debt in real time, how much it's increasing by and even what you could buy with it!
Alongside this, we produced a handy booklet on the national debt (which you can now view in pdf form) called ‘The Indebted Kingdom’ which lays out in a bite-sized and easy-to-understand way all the things that you need to know about Britain's national debt.
Here are five takeaways from our booklet:
1. Debt interest payments cost taxpayers £102.2bn in 2023-24.
This eye-watering number is the amount of money it costs just to service our current public sector debt. Worst still, this interest is currently the fifth largest item of expenditure by the government which puts it ahead of the spending on 12 government departments. Ouch.
2. The UK debt as a percentage of GDP is already higher than that of Weimar Germany.
Weimar Germany was hardly known for its political or economic stability with the country in 1925 harbouring a debt to GDP ratio of 68 per cent. The UK on the other hand has a debt to GDP ratio of 88.7 per cent. Concerning.
3. The debt interest could buy 13 billion bottles of wine.
If you like a good glass of chardonnay then be in no fear, if you had £102.2bn in your back pocket you could satisfy your wine cravings for a few lifetimes. The amount of wine bought with the debt interest could also fill over 3900 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Although, I’m not sure the Olympics will be introducing the 400m sauvignon blanc Freestyle anytime soon.
4. Modern monetary theory (MMT) is wrong about the national debt
MMT lovers argue that the national debt is simply money the government put into the economy and didn’t tax back. But the reality is that the more money the government borrows via deficit spending, the more it increases the national debt which can potentially drive inflation. Luckily MMT isn’t particularly in vogue but their arguments always seem to pop up when this issue is discussed.
5. The national debt is more than two times the size of the total planned spending of all departments in 2023-24
Yes, you read that correctly. The total planned spending of all government departments is £1,026 billion and the current national debt sits at over £2.5 trillion. So the national debt could pay for the total planned spending of all the government departments more than two times over. Imagine what the government could do with that kind of cash!
With the budget coming up and conversations concerning the debt surfacing in political discussion, it's important to be armed with the facts. Our latest factbook on Britain's national debt will help you understand what is at stake for the government over the next five years but also the facts about how gargantuan and eye-watering our national debt truly is.
Read the factbook in full here.