Britain’s national debt heads towards £2trillion

Britain’s ballooning national debt rose by £250m a day last year – leaving it just shy of £1.7trillion.

Figures from the Office for national statistics yesterday showed the UK owed a record £1,698,100,000,000 at the end of 2016 – or £26,000 per person.

analysts said mounting debt levels were storing up problems for future generations – and argued that interest payments of approaching £40bn a year could be better spent on crucial services such as social care.

the Ons report came as Philip Hammond published a new ‘Charter for Budget responsibility’ setting out his plans to bring the public finances back under control.

the Chancellor has ditched George Osborne’s target of balancing the books by the end of the decade – and instead promised to do so ‘as soon as possible in the next Parliament’ which is expected to run from 2020 to 2025.

But the national debt will not start falling until Britain runs a surplus – something that will not happen until well into the next decade under current government plans.

a further £91.5bn was added to the debt mountain last year alone – a staggering £250m a day or nearly £2,900 per second – as the country continued to live beyond its means.

Debts pile up when govern- ments spend more on public services, welfare payments and other projects than they receive in tax.

it took Britain 315 years to rack up its first £850bn of debt, having started borrowing in 1694 when King William iii raised £1.2m to wage war on France.

But the next £850bn has taken just over seven years.

the Ons noted that ‘debt has been built up by successive government administrations over many years’ and is now worth 86.2pc of national income.

and despite talk of austerity – from both Hammond and his predecessor – the national debt is expected to reach £2trillion and 90pc of gross domestic product in the coming years.