Public finance is on "an unsustainable path" according to data. The Office for Budget Responsibility, or OBR, has claimed that Chancellor Philip Hammond is likely to find it impossible to balance the books in the coming years without cutting spending or raising taxes. The Chancellor said in his Autumn Statement he expected the deficit to be 2 percent of GDP by 2020, revised down from previous chancellor George Osborne's plans to have a budget surplus by the end of next parliament. But the OBR says that public sector debt could go from being 82 percent of GDP now to a staggering 234 percent over the next fourty years. It blamed the increased spending on the NHS and state pensions in particular. To understand what this means for the UK, Share Radio's Matt Cox spoke to Suren Thiru, Head of Economics at the British Chambers of Commerce.

Published: Wed 18 January 2017