Soaring national debt

sir – As a precursor to announcing tax rises to pay for Covid, Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has said that government has a sacred responsibility to future generations to leave the public finances strong, and that this Tory Government will always balance the books (report October 6).

Successive governments have not balanced the books. In the past 10 years under the Tories, national debt had doubled to almost £2 trillion – before Covid. The liabilities for the ruinously expensive public-sector pensions have resulted in every man, woman and child in Britain each being saddled with roughly £30,000 of debt.

So much for sacred responsibility to future generations.

Bill Parish

Bromley, Kent