Further cuts in Britain’s government spending will be needed beyond this parliament in order to bring the national debt under control, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has warned, BBC said. In its annual report, the OBR said that without further spending cuts or tax rises, the national debt would only increase. It said a permanent £20 billion ($31 billion) cut in annual public spending will be needed by 2020. That would help bring the national debt down to 40% of GDP by 2064, it said. If achieved, this means it would have taken more than half a century to bring the national debt back to the same level it was before the 2008 financial crisis. Last year, public sector net debt was £1.48 trillion, or 80% of economic output, compared with around £600b, or around 42% of GDP, in 2008. And the OBR warned that even a cut of this size, equivalent to 1.1% of GDP, would not be sufficient to keep the national debt at 40% beyond 2064.
