Borrowing is now at its lowest for 16 years in booming Britain

BRITAIN’S borrowing is at its lowest for 16 years as rising tax receipts confound warnings of economic doom following the Brexit referendum.

In a sign that the vote to leave the EU has done nothing to derail plans to put the country’s finances back on a stable footing, the Office for National Statistics said the Government borrowed £40.5billion last year – down from £153billion in 2009-10 under the last Labour government.

It is also around half the amount George Osborne predicted Britain would borrow last year in the event of a Brexit vote.

The figures give the lie to warnings that the decision to leave the EU would crash the economy and hammer tax receipts.

Instead, last year’s deficit was 2 per cent of national income – the lowest since 200102, when Tony Blair and Gordon Brown began a debt-fuelled spending spree.

When the Tory-Lib Dem Coalition came to power in 2010, the deficit stood at 9.9 per cent of gross domestic product.

Liz Truss, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said: ‘Borrowing as a share of our economy is at a 16-year low.

‘This is a testament to the hard work of the British people as we fix our finances and build a Britain fit for the future.

‘We are strengthening the economy whilst cutting income tax and investing in public services. Labour would put that all at risk with their bonkers borrowing binge.’

In the so-called dossier of doom issued two years ago today, former chancellor Mr Osborne said borrowing would hit almost £78billion last year if voters opted for Brexit.

In the Autumn Statement in November 2016, the Office for Budget Responsibility pencilled in borrowing of £59billion as it warned of the impact of the Brexit vote.

In fact, the Government borrowed £40.5billion as tax receipts rose 3.4 per cent to a record £701.8billion. Corporation tax receipts rose 6.3 per cent to £57.7billion.

It borrowed a further £7.8billion in April, the first month of the fiscal year – down from £9billion in the same month last year.

Receipts from income tax and capital gains tax jumped 12.3 per cent to £12.8billion last month as record levels of employment boosted Treasury coffers. VAT receipts rose 2.8 per cent to £11.5billion.

The figures will put pressure on Chancellor Philip Hammond to ease austerity and free funds for public-sector pay rises.

But with the national debt close to £1.8trillion, or 85.1 per cent of national income, he is reluctant to embark on a spree.

The national debt has risen nearly six-fold since 2000, from just over £300billion to nearly £1.8trillion. The Government spent £54.6billion in debt interest payments alone last year – or more than £1billion a week.

THE House of Lords is an oversized, outdated throwback, utterly out of touch with the people, stuffed with second-raters who abuse their position (and expenses) – and in crying need of radical reform.

Such is the devastating verdict of the public, revealed by the Mail today in a major poll exposing the full scale of anger over unelected peers’ attempts to thwart Brexit and subvert democracy.

As the findings make plain, voters’ fury has come to a head over the 15 defeats inflicted by the Lords on the Government’s legislation to enact the referendum result.

With breathtaking arrogance, peers claim they are merely carrying out their constitutional duty to scrutinise and revise draft statutes. In fact, as voters see all too clearly, they’re plotting to defy the biggest democratic mandate in UK history.

Is it any surprise that more than half of those polled by ComRes say the peers’ conduct is wrong – a figure rising to almost 90 per cent among Leavers – while only 29 per cent say they’ve acted properly?

Nor is Brexit the only issue on which the Upper House has overstepped itself. In recent weeks, these dinosaurs in ermine have sought repeatedly to launch another Leveson-style crackdown on Press freedom, in open defiance of a Tory manifesto pledge.

It’s as if they are trying to drag us back to the 18th Century, when the country was ruled by a remote and self- serving elite, oblivious of the wishes of the governed.

No wonder only 17 per cent say the Lords should be allowed to survive in its present form – with a quarter saying it should be scrapped altogether.

Indeed, voters look with growing resentment at this chamber of almost 800 members – second only in size to the National People’s Congress of China.

Yes, there are some good people in the Lords. But there are far too many cronies, crooks, dodgy donors, Brussels pensioners and other superannuated placemen of the political class – all helping themselves to daily tax-free allowances of £305 for life.

So disillusioned are the public that only a fifth say peers have ‘valuable life experience and skills’, with the same paltry proportion saying the Lords is ‘fit for the modern age’.

How much longer can we go on like this, with each administration creating more peers to manipulate the balance of the House – leading to the ludicrous position in which the Lib Dems have almost nine times more peers than MPs?

The Mail doesn’t have a magic formula for the perfect second chamber. But it cannot be impossible for an all-party commission to devise a system promoting the best minds in business, industry, science, unions and academia.

As our poll makes clear, the case for reform is overwhelming. British democracy and public trust in the legitimacy of our system of government depend on it.

NOW there’s a surprise! Tony Blair insists he knew nothing about the kidnap and torture of Libyan dissident Abdel Hakim Belhaj, in which his government colluded with MI6. Leave aside that this abomination happened to coincide with his notorious ‘deal in the desert’ with Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi, who was demanding the handover of his enemies. Shouldn’t the prime minister of the day have known? Indeed, if Teflon Tony is telling the truth – a big If – will he now explain how he came to be kept in ignorance?

TWO years ago today, in his ‘dossier of doom’, former Chancellor George Osborne warned that borrowing would spiral to £78billion last year if we voted to leave the EU. Yesterday, the official figures came in, showing borrowing in 2017 at £40.5billion – its lowest for 16 years. At last, the public finances are truly on the mend (to be fair, a process started by the young chancellor). Any comment, Mr Osborne?