Public-sector net borrowing excluding public-sector banks (PSNB ex) amounted to £119.1bn in the first three quarters of the 2023-24 financial year (FY), the fourth highest on record for that period. In the second half of the last decade PSNB ex was generally around half as high in the respective periods. 

PSNB ex for the full FY 2022-23 amounted to £130.1bn, equivalent to 5.1% of GDP, marginally lower than in 2021-22 but significantly smaller than the 15% recorded in 2020-21 as a result of the Covid pandemic. The share is also lower than in any FY between 2008-09 and 2013-14. 

Central government is historically responsible for most of the public-sector net borrowing. In 2022-23 central government and local government borrowed £127.8bn and £10.7bn respectively on a net basis, with non-financial public corporations and funded public-sector pensions reporting small surpluses. In previous years the Bank of England also recorded small surpluses. Transfers between the sub-sectors are netted out of the statistics.

The UK government’s preferred measure of debt is on a net basis excluding public-sector banks (PSND ex). In December 2023 PSND ex stood at 97.7% of GDP, a level last seen in the early 1960s. PSND ex increased from ~35% of GDP at the end of 2007-08 to ~85% of GDP mid last decade because of the financial crisis. It jumped to nearly 100% of GDP in 2020-21 as a result of the Covid pandemic. 

International public finance comparisons are commonly made on a general government gross basis. As a share of GDP, UK gross general government debt was lower in 2022 (at 101.9%) than in France (at 111.1%), the United States (at 121.3%) but higher than in Germany (at 66.1%). The G7 average was 128%, much of it reflecting Japan’s high debt level (at 260.1% of GDP). 

The government announced in its 2023 Autumn Statement to reduce public-sector net borrowing from an estimated ~4.5% of GDP in 2023-24 to below 2% of GDP by 2027-28 so that net debt could start falling as a share of GDP within the next five years – one of the government’s fiscal targets. In 2023-24 social protection and health spending should make up nearly half of total managed expenditure, while debt interest payments account for around 10% – only marginally less than education spending.

Between mid-2011 and mid-2022 the number of people aged 0 to 19 years increased by 2.6%, that of people aged 20 to 64 years (commonly defined as ‘the working age’) by 4.3% and that of people aged 65 years and over by 19.9%. As a result, for every person aged 65 years and over there were around three people of working age – down from nearly four people in mid-2011. This is referred to as the old-age dependency ratio. 

London and the South West stand out among English regions in terms of age structure 

The age structure among English regions varies considerably. In terms of the old-age dependency ratio, the South West has by far the oldest population of all the English regions, with only 2½ people of working age for every person aged 65 years and over, followed by the North East at 2¾. At the other end of the spectrum is London with nearly 5½ people of working age for every person aged 65 years or over. The differences are much wider still on a more detailed geographic breakdown, with around 12 people of working age for every person aged 65 years and over in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and less than 1½ in North Norfolk.

The picture is more similar when it comes to young people of schooling age (5 to 19 years): in every English region there are between 3 and 4 people of working age for every person of schooling age. 

Total fertility rates vary widely across local authority districts and are too low to replace the population 

There were 595,948 live births in England in 2021. The total fertility rate (TFR) for England was 1.62 children per women in 2021, the second lowest since the early 1940s. Westminster had the lowest TFR at 1, while Luton had the highest at 2.23. Luton was also the only local authority district in which TFR exceeded the replacement rate of 2.1 required to stabilise the population in the absence of immigration. 

According to the United Nations (UN), the average temperature of the earth’s surface is now ~1.1°C higher than it was before the industrial revolution and the highest in the last 100,000 years. The decade between 2011 and 2020 was the warmest on record, and each of the last four decades has been warmer than any previous decade since 1850. Moreover, July 2023 was by far the hottest July on record and likely the hottest it has been in 120,000 years. 

Beyond an increasing average temperature of the earth’s surface, climate change manifests itself in many other ways. For example, over the last four decades the global mean sea surface temperature has increased by ~0.6°C – according to NASA, around 9/10th of global warming is occurring in the oceans. Increasing ocean temperatures have been linked to increasing hurricane intensity, while rising temperature levels generally have accelerated the melting of polar ice caps, resulting in rising sea levels (these have risen by more than 20 cm since 1880), and of glaciers in the mountain ranges of the world.

Changing weather patterns are also reflected in changing global patterns of precipitation, for example in less frequent but more intense rainfall, and wind patterns, both in terms of direction and speed. The impact of climate change will vary across regions or even local areas. 

According to the Met Office climate change can also explain the rise in more intense and frequent warm spells and fall in more intense and frequent cold spells in the UK. Central England temperatures have risen markedly since records began in the 1880s. The linkage to heavy rains, dry spells and storms remains inconclusive though.