The UK government borrowed less than expected in December, official figures show, after record-breaking receipts, giving a boost to the chancellor.
Public sector net borrowing – the difference between spending and income – was £11.6bn last month, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said, compared with £18.7bn in the same month a year earlier.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected borrowing to be £13bn in December. The figure is closely watched by the City as it shows how much the government is borrowing to finance its spending plans and whether it is exceeding its target for the year.
Ruth Gregory, the deputy chief UK economist at Capital Economics, said: “The public finances are finally showing signs of improvement in recent months.”
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The celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay has accused the government of cooking up a kitchen nightmare at restaurants across the country with tax changes that he says will make hospitality businesses “lambs to the slaughter”.
Ramsay, whose company operates 34 restaurants in the UK including Bread Street Kitchen, Pétrus and Lucky Cat, said the industry was “facing a bloodbath”. He said restaurants were closing every day as a result of rising business rates, which came on top of higher energy, staffing and ingredient costs and little growth in consumer spending.
“I’ve never seen it so bad,” Ramsay told the Standardnews site. “When I look ahead to April, when the budget measures come in, I think those of us in hospitality are lambs to the slaughter.”
He said the fact that businesses were still recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic, during which many restaurants were forced to close for months as part of government-ordered lockdowns, meant the situation was even worse than after the 2008 financial crisis.
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper has said the UK will not yet be signing up to US President Donald Trump's Board of Peace over concerns about Russian leader Vladimir Putin's possible participation.
Cooper told the BBC the UK had been invited to join the board but "won't be one of the signatories today" at a ceremony at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
The board, which gives Trump wide decision-making powers as chairman, is being billed by the US as a new international organisation for resolving conflicts.
Cooper described the board as a "legal treaty that raises much broader issues" than the initiative's initial focus on ending the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
The charter proposed by the White House does not mention the Palestinian territory and critics say the board appears to be designed to replace some functions of the United Nations.
Some of the US's traditional allies have not agreed to join the board and notably, none of the other permanent members of the UN Security Council - China, France, Russia, and the UK - have committed to participation so far.
The UN Security Council has been the main international platform for global diplomacy and conflict resolution since the end of World War Two.
But launching the board at a signing ceremony alongside world leaders in Davos, Trump said he did not intend it as a replacement for the UN and expressed his belief that it would help forge an "everlasting" peace in the Middle East.
Trump said the board had the chance to be "one of the most consequential bodies ever created".
The number of police constabularies in England and Wales is set to be slashed in what is understood to be the largest overhaul of policing in decades..
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will reveal plans next week to significantly cut the number of forces from 43
- By Tubby Isaacs
Nobody likes paying tax. Everyone says that the st[…]
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