UK government borrowing was significantly lower last month, due to more income from taxes and higher National Insurance Contributions outweighing spending, figures show.In December government borrowing – the difference between public spending and tax income – was £11.6bn, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.It is down £7.1bn – 38% – from the previous December, and lower than what many economists had predicted, but still higher than that borrowed in the same month in 2023.Tom Davies, Deputy Director for the ONS public service division, said the fall was a result of “receipts being up strongly on last year whereas spending is only modestly higher”.Despite the annual fall, the December 2025 figure was the tenth highest for the month since records began in 1993, without adjusting for inflation.And it remains higher than December 2023, when borrowing stood at £8.1bn.The figures show the government received £7.7bn more – an 8.9% rise – in taxes in December 2025 than it did in the same month in 2024.This comprised increases in income tax, corporation tax, VAT and National Insurance contributions (NIC), the ONS said – with changes to the rate of NIC paid by employers coming into effect in April last year.According to provisional estimates, borrowing over the financial year to December totalled £140.4bn, about £300m lower than the same period in 2024, the ONS said.The borrowing figure was estimated as 4.6% of GDP – 0.2 percentage points down from the same period last year. It was the third-highest level of borrowing over April-December on record, after those in 2020 and 20 …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnUK government borrowing was significantly lower last month, due to more income from taxes and higher National Insurance Contributions outweighing spending, figures show.In December government borrowing – the difference between public spending and tax income – was £11.6bn, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.It is down £7.1bn – 38% – from the previous December, and lower than what many economists had predicted, but still higher than that borrowed in the same month in 2023.Tom Davies, Deputy Director for the ONS public service division, said the fall was a result of “receipts being up strongly on last year whereas spending is only modestly higher”.Despite the annual fall, the December 2025 figure was the tenth highest for the month since records began in 1993, without adjusting for inflation.And it remains higher than December 2023, when borrowing stood at £8.1bn.The figures show the government received £7.7bn more – an 8.9% rise – in taxes in December 2025 than it did in the same month in 2024.This comprised increases in income tax, corporation tax, VAT and National Insurance contributions (NIC), the ONS said – with changes to the rate of NIC paid by employers coming into effect in April last year.According to provisional estimates, borrowing over the financial year to December totalled £140.4bn, about £300m lower than the same period in 2024, the ONS said.The borrowing figure was estimated as 4.6% of GDP – 0.2 percentage points down from the same period last year. It was the third-highest level of borrowing over April-December on record, after those in 2020 and 20 …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
