LONDON (Reuters) – British government borrowing is on course to surge to around 350 billion pounds ($442 billion) this year following the latest spending measures announced by finance minister Rishi Sunak, the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank estimated on Thursday.
“Back in March, the government forecast a deficit of about 50 to 60 billion pounds this year. Our current estimate is it could well be around 350 billion pounds. There is a huge amount of uncertainty around that figure,” IFS deputy director Carl Emmerson said.
Annual borrowing as a share of the economy was on course to be its highest outside wartime in more than 300 years, he added.
($1 = 0.7914 pounds)
(Reporting by David Milliken, editing by Elizabeth Piper)
