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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Phillip Inman

Now Britain is in the 100% debt-to-GDP club, what’s the spending plan?

George Osborne outside Downing Street in 2015.
George Osborne outside Downing Street in 2015: he did his utmost to keep the UK’s debt ratio below 100%. Photograph: Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters

Britain is about to become a member of a club it has avoided joining for six decades – that of nations with a 100% debt-to-GDP ratio.

Such is the size and scale of the rescue packages needed to prevent the energy crisis overwhelming millions of families and avoid thousands of businesses going bust, a debt ratio that shot up from 83% to 94% in the first months of the pandemic and touched almost 104% in 2021, is now on course to stay in three figures for the rest of the decade.

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