Economy 19h 47m left
Should there be a legal limit on how much the government can borrow?
The UK has no legal cap on government borrowing or debt. The Treasury sets its own fiscal rules in the Charter for Budget Responsibility, and these can be changed. The current rules require the day-to-day budget to be in balance and debt to be falling as a share of GDP by 2029-30. Public sector net debt passed £3 trillion in September 2026, about 94% of GDP, and borrowing is running above the OBR's forecast. A 2010 Act with legal borrowing duties was repealed in 2011.
7 Opinions
No hard limit, there are genuine cases where we might need to borrow a lot. But there should definitely be more oversight & some conditions should need to be met before we can borrow
You mean like the EU has had for years? Another Brexit benefit - be careful what you wish for.
A legal limit would restrict government response to a crisis, but there should be strict rules about what a government can borrow for.
It's time the government got governed.
There should be rules, but unfortunately governments break them, then lie about breaking them. All governments.
There should be clear fiscal rules and normal limits, but the government needs to have the flexibility to deal with crises and emergencies.
High national debt just transfers working class taxpayer money directly to the ultra rich. The more we borrow, the more of our budget gets swallowed by interest payments to private banks instead of funding the green transition and pensions. Capping borrowing breaks our reliance on private financiers and forces us to build a fairer, tax funded economy