Setting aside the peculiarity of making an Autumn Statement in early December, the dust has settled, for the time being, on the brouhaha which accompanied the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s latest diagnosis and prescription to remedy the financial ills of the nation.
The country is riddled with debt and it needs to be cured by short and mid-term pain for long term gain it seems.
It is politically acceptable to talk about the national debt again in a way it probably hasn’t been since the 1970s. Then, we were all about the Public Sector Borrowing Requirement and inflation, the 3-day week and the winter of discontent.
All the mainstream Westminster parties - and those aspiring to become so after the next election - are no longer embarrassed to mention the ‘D’ word again. And not only to talk about how indebted we are as a nation, but also to set out their stall as to how we can decrease this public debt.
It is okay to talk about repaying our debt, even if in repaying it what we actually mean is reducing the cost of servicing it.
In the fiscal year 2018-2019, implementation of the Government’s current programme will see us save £18 billion in interest payments. Borrowing is falling. Next year it will be £75.9 billion, falling from £91.3 billion this which, itself, has dropped from last year’s £97.5 billion.
We are aiming to be in the black to the tune of a £23 billion suplus in 2019-2020 but we are cautioned it could get messy in order for this to be achieved. Being in the black is a laudable business aim.
While it’s fine to talk about our national debt and how we can repay it, it’s still not fashionable to talk about our private debt in polite company as that’s even messier, but we have to start somewhere.
Tucked away in the detail and the in-depth coverage of the Chancellor’s statement was notice of our intention to pay back or, at least try to clear, the nation’s historical debts – some of which date back to the early 18th Century.
The refinancing of World War One debts in 1932 took the form of a bond replacing a gilt which was first issued in 1917. Now - well ,on 09 March 2015 to be precise - the British Government is set to redeem this bond which, in total with other war bonds since the penultimate year of the Great War, has cost £5.5 billion pounds in interest alone.
HM Treasury has made it known that it is the intention to repay, at the appropriate point, ‘legacy bonds’ which shored up borrowings against other expenses incurred during our nation’s history.
Some of these bonds and gilts financed the Napoleonic Wars, the setting up of the Bank of England and the clean-up when the South Sea Bubble burst and rocked the finances of the country in 1720.
Which, if any of these specific, perpetual debts are to be revisited have yet to be confirmed in detail but the fact that we, as a nation, are beginning to address our nationalised indebtedness tells the story of our times more than of those past.
Let’s hope we’ve eaten, drank and been merry in the past few weeks; for next May, we vote.
The country is riddled with debt and it needs to be cured by short and mid-term pain for long term gain it seems.
It is politically acceptable to talk about the national debt again in a way it probably hasn’t been since the 1970s. Then, we were all about the Public Sector Borrowing Requirement and inflation, the 3-day week and the winter of discontent.
All the mainstream Westminster parties - and those aspiring to become so after the next election - are no longer embarrassed to mention the ‘D’ word again. And not only to talk about how indebted we are as a nation, but also to set out their stall as to how we can decrease this public debt.
It is okay to talk about repaying our debt, even if in repaying it what we actually mean is reducing the cost of servicing it.
In the fiscal year 2018-2019, implementation of the Government’s current programme will see us save £18 billion in interest payments. Borrowing is falling. Next year it will be £75.9 billion, falling from £91.3 billion this which, itself, has dropped from last year’s £97.5 billion.
We are aiming to be in the black to the tune of a £23 billion suplus in 2019-2020 but we are cautioned it could get messy in order for this to be achieved. Being in the black is a laudable business aim.
While it’s fine to talk about our national debt and how we can repay it, it’s still not fashionable to talk about our private debt in polite company as that’s even messier, but we have to start somewhere.
Tucked away in the detail and the in-depth coverage of the Chancellor’s statement was notice of our intention to pay back or, at least try to clear, the nation’s historical debts – some of which date back to the early 18th Century.
The refinancing of World War One debts in 1932 took the form of a bond replacing a gilt which was first issued in 1917. Now - well ,on 09 March 2015 to be precise - the British Government is set to redeem this bond which, in total with other war bonds since the penultimate year of the Great War, has cost £5.5 billion pounds in interest alone.
HM Treasury has made it known that it is the intention to repay, at the appropriate point, ‘legacy bonds’ which shored up borrowings against other expenses incurred during our nation’s history.
Some of these bonds and gilts financed the Napoleonic Wars, the setting up of the Bank of England and the clean-up when the South Sea Bubble burst and rocked the finances of the country in 1720.
Which, if any of these specific, perpetual debts are to be revisited have yet to be confirmed in detail but the fact that we, as a nation, are beginning to address our nationalised indebtedness tells the story of our times more than of those past.
Let’s hope we’ve eaten, drank and been merry in the past few weeks; for next May, we vote.
Will Mooney MRICS
Partner
Commercial, Cambridge
