UK National Debt Hits £3 Trillion Milestone

The UK's national debt has surpassed £3tn, according to recent figures from the Office for National Statistics. While it hasn't quite reached three thousand billion pounds yet, at £2,989.9bn in June, it's likely that this milestone will be breached soon.

Government borrowing averaged £13bn a month last year, and with new Prime Minister Andy Burnham making large spending commitments, the debt is expected to continue rising rapidly.

The UK's national debt first hit £1tn in February 2010, after the global financial crisis. It took 316 years for the country's debt to reach this level since the Bank of England was founded in 1694.

Now, just six years on from breaching the £2tn mark, Britain has topped £3tn of debt, with most of it due to soaring welfare bills and an escalating debt interest bill. Labour is borrowing £4,270 every second, or £369m per day, according to estimates by the Taxpayers' Alliance.

The UK's debt interest costs are among the highest in major economies, with investors charging around 5pc per annum to borrow for 10 years. This means that the Government is shelling out £120bn on debt interest each year, more than the state spends on education and twice the defence budget.