UK government borrowing rose in April, confounding expectations of a fall, ahead of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ spending review next month.
Figures published on Thursday by the Office for National Statistics showed that the public sector’s total spending was £20.2bn more than its income for the first month of the new tax year, up from a shortfall of £19.1bn in April 2024.
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast that government borrowing would fall to £17.9bn last month.
Reeves will set out detailed expenditure plans for individual government departments in her June 11 spending review — the first by a Labour government since the 2000s.
She is under pressure to meet her fiscal rule to balance day-to-day spending with revenues by 2029-30 while improving public services and spurring growth.
The chancellor’s slender room for manoeuvre, which was last calculated at £9.9bn, is set to be put under further pressure by the economic impact of US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
In a memo sent to Reeves before her Spring Statement in late March, deputy prime minister Angela Rayner urged the chancellor to make further tax increases rather than cutting public spending
Thursday’s ONS data also showed government borrowing hit £148.3bn in the 2024/25 fiscal year — a revision of the ONS’s previous estimate of £151.9bn, but still £11bn above the £137.3bn forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility, the UK’s fiscal watchdog.
