Sign up for our email featuring expert insight and funding opportunities for entrepreneurs and SMEs I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said it was the third highest borrowing total on record behind only the emergency years of 2021 during the pandemic and 2010 in the wake of the global financial crisis when the Government was forced to step in the save the banking system. However, as a percentage of GDP it is...

The Treasury overshot its borrowing forecasts by £14.6bn last year, official figures showed, as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) delivered a blow to Rachel Reeves by cutting its growth forecasts for Britain. Public sector borrowing, excluding banks, hit £151.9bn in the year to March, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). It was well ahead of projections made just last month by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) that Treasury borrowing would hit £137.3bn for the 2024/25 financial year. It also surpassed by £24.4bn the OBR’s forecast at the...