Right now:
- 6%+ on 30 year gilts, highest since 1998
By 2027/28:
- £117 billion debt interest
- £96.5 billion new borrowing
Over 5 years:
- £682 billion interest
- £58 billion above OBR’s March forecast
Britain is now forecast to spend more on debt interest than it will borrow that year.
After all of that, Britain still owes nearly £3 trillion.
https://uknationaldebt.com/
The Budget is on 28 October and the choices are brutal:
- Tax more and risk capital leaving
- Borrow more and pay more interest
- Dramatically cut spending*
- Debase the currency (although they won't call it that)
* Even savage spending cuts will barely make a dent.
Source: This is Money / Capital Economics / OBR
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-16180359/Alarm-Healey-set-spend-loan-repayments-borrowing-latest-Budget-blow.html
quotingBritain will spend £109 BILLION on debt interest this year.
nevent1q…d24j
That is more than:
- The entire Education budget
- The entire Defence budget
- Nearly 4× the Transport budget
- More than 5× the Home Office budget
- Nearly 8× the Justice budget
- Roughly half the Health and Social Care (NHS) budget
That is the equivalent of around £3,220 per working person per year, or £268 a month, just to service the national debt.
The debt is rising by roughly £4,000 to £4,300 every second.
At a time when people are already being squeezed by the cost of living, a huge amount of the tax they pay is being swallowed up by interest on old debt rather than paying for the services they actually use.
After all that, the £2.9 trillion debt is still there.
https://uknationaldebt.com/
Snapshot of the live UK National Debt Clock taken at 7:12 am on 18 Aug 2026.
