Real debt in Britain is £78,000 for each family… more than twice the official figure
Daily Mail
12.07.2010
By Daily Mail Reporter
The true scale of the national debt is £2trillion - more than twice the official figure, an alarming study shows.
The black hole in the public accounts equates to £78,000 for every household in the country.
The ‘real’ state of the national finances is exposed in a study published today by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, which warns of a series of mammoth debts that aren’t revealed by the official figures.
The national debt - forecast to reach £932million by next spring - does not include a number of expensive liabilities, such as the cost of civil service and town hall pensions and projects funded under the Public Finance Initiative.
Putting these liabilities into the official figure would add £1.13trillion to Britain’s whopping overdraft, according to CEBR.
Under the worrying scenario, the debt would jump from 62 per cent to 138 per cent of Britain’s income.
In its study, CEBR warned that the Government cannot formulate a plan to revive the economy while the liabilities remain hidden.
Charles Davis, an economist at CEBR, said: ‘Clarity and transparency on the public sector finances has never been more vital in the context of recent concerns over public sector debt, particularly in the advanced economies.’
Related:
Irish Independent: 170,000 homeowners are hit with negative equity
Five million Brits ‘permanently overdrawn’ as families struggle with cost of living
