Government borrowing figures: Positive Money response

London, 23 April 2025 - Positive Money reacts to the ONS’ estimates that government borrowing in March 2025 was £16.4 billion - up £2.8 billion on March 2024.

Alec Haglund, Senior Researcher at Positive Money, said: 

“Every month we're told the cost of government borrowing has soared, but we're usually only told what this means for public spending, not why it's happening.

“In keeping rates unnecessarily high, the Bank of England is increasing the amount of interest it pays to banks on their central bank reserve accounts, a cost that is ultimately borne by the Treasury.

“The short-term solution to this would be a windfall tax on banks' record profits, to recoup some of the public money banks have taken since rates started rising. But to fix this broken system in the long-term, we need better approaches to dealing with inflation and debt management - ones which don’t exacerbate inequality.”

Notes:

• The Office for National Statistics’ full announcement can be found here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicsectorfinance/bulletins/publicsectorfinances/march2025 

• Positive Money worked out that a windfall tax on 2024 bank profits would bring in almost £15 billion for the Treasury from just the biggest four banks: https://positivemoney.org/uk/press-release/windfall-tax-on-bank-profits-could-raise-ps15bn/