It’s not just the growth figures, you know. Today, the Office for National Statistics also released its latest estimates for the state of the public finances. Among the headline findings was a crumb of consolation for the Treasury: it is on track to meet its borrowing target for the financial year.
But that’s by the by when compared to this other snippet from the ONS release: our national debt went up by £1,300 billion in December. Don’t worry, though – it’s not really as terrible as all that sounds. What’s happened is that the human calculators have finally worked out how to account for Lloyds and RBS on the public balance sheet. This isn’t new debt. It’s simply a grand liability that wasn’t included in the official statistics until now. The effect has been to add £1.3 trillion to what is called “Public Sector Net Debt including financial interventions”.
So the scary graph of PSND excluding Lloyds, RBS and the other bailed out institutions…
…has just gained an even scarier sidekick:
The ONS have taped all kinds of caveats across this.
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