Act soon to change ‘unsustainable’ direction of UK debt, OBR warns

Rachel Reeves at RAF Northolt, London, last year. The OBR said defence spending would have to rise by an extra £28bn a year to meet the promise to spend 3.5% of GDP. Photograph: PA Images/Alamy

Policymakers must act to prevent public debt rising unsustainably in coming decades as the population ages and defence spending rises, the government’s independent economic forecaster has said.

In a fresh illustration of the challenges facing the prime minister in waiting, Andy Burnham, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said that without government action “debt would move on to what would be an unsustainable, ever-upward path from around the 2040s”.