Motion S5M-06837: Increased UK Borrowing

27 Jul 2017

That the Parliament acknowledges the Office for National Statistics figures, which show that public sector net borrowing, excluding state-owned banks, increased by £2 billion to £6.9 billion in June 2017 compared with the same month in the previous year; notes that previous forecasts had predicted £4.8 billion and that the total UK debt, excluding banks, stood at £1.75 trillion which is equivalent to 87.4% of GDP; believes that public borrowing itself is not necessarily a bad thing if kept to manageable levels and, if used to stimulate the economy, is in fact a tried and tested method for climbing out of a recession; considers, however, that the UK Government’s economic policy provides the worst of both worlds, as the country faces increased borrowing alongside what it considers a horrendous level of debt at a time when household incomes are falling at their fastest rate since 1976; believes that this is the latest in a long line of economic mismanagement from successive UK administrations, and considers that an independent Scotland would be very unlikely to mismanage the economy as badly as the UK has done.