By Stephen Denby of the Bank’s Monetary and Financial Statistics Division.
This article continues a long-standing annual series analysing the public sector debt position, the national debt and its distribution. It has been compiled with the help of the Central Statistical Office and others. Its main points are:
- In 1994/95, the nominal value of the net debt of the public sector and market holdings of the national debt rose by around £39 billion and £31 billion respectively. As a proportion of GDP, these measures increased respectively by 3.8 and 2.6 percentage points—to 42.0% and 44.2%.
- In the twelve months to the end of March 1995, general government consolidated gross debt as a proportion of GDP (calculated on a Maastricht basis) rose by 2.2 percentage points to 50.5%. This meant that it remained well below the 60% reference level specified in the Maastricht Treaty.
The net debt of the public sector: end-March 1995