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| UK borrowing soars in August as Covid costs mount | UK borrowing soars in August as Covid costs mount |
| (32 minutes later) | |
| The UK government borrowed £35.9bn in August as tackling the economic fallout of pandemic took its toll on the public finances, official figures show. | The UK government borrowed £35.9bn in August as tackling the economic fallout of pandemic took its toll on the public finances, official figures show. |
| The figure - the difference between spending and tax income - was £30.5bn more than it borrowed in August last year. | The figure - the difference between spending and tax income - was £30.5bn more than it borrowed in August last year. |
| The increase meant that the borrowing figure hit its highest amount for August since records began in 1993. | |
| Borrowing between April and August totalled £173.7bn - also a record. | |
| UK debt passed £2tn for the first time in history in July as the government spent billions on introducing measures designed to protect the economy against the fallout caused by the coronavirus crisis. | |
| In August, debt hit £2.024tn, £249.5bn more than the same time in 2019, according to the Office for National Statistics. | |
| That figure now exceeds the size of the UK economy, the highest level of debt seen since the 1960s. | |
| Andrew Wishart, UK economist at Capital Economics, said that rising borrowing figures were down to the government absorbing "much of the cost of the Covid-19 crisis". | |
| The government has been forced to cover a wide range of wide-range of coronavirus-related costs - from the furlough scheme and bailouts for rail firms to business rates holidays and VAT cuts for hospitality and tourism. | |
| But "the big picture is that fiscal support will fade over the autumn causing many more job losses to be realised", Mr Wishart added. |