October Government Borrowing Deficit £3bn Higher Than Forecast Means Gloomy Budget

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has today released figures for Government borrowing in October 2025 and it was £3bn higher than forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) with a deficit of spending over tax revenue of some £17.4bn.

This is not great news for the Chancellor with the Autumn Budget coming next Wednesday.  It is the final nail in the coffin for more taxes needed.

Key Points from the ONS report:

• The third-highest October borrowing since records began.
• £3bn over OBR forecast.
• £6.3bn higher than October 2022 when we were struggling to come out of the Covid pandemic
• Since Labour came into power last year, they now have the 2^nd and 3^rd highest October borrowing on record (October 24 and October 2025).
• It is only in October 2020 (pandemic lockdown) that it has been higher than the last 2 years.
• When looking at yearly figures, it is the third-highest borrowing in a financial year since records began in March 1947 – and that was the grim, post War recovery period when we still had rationing.

The only ‘ray of sunshine’ is that due to interest rate cuts, interest payments on government debt were £1.1bn lower than last month.

Comment

This is not great news for the Government as they will have to borrow more to meet additional interest payments on ever increasing debt.   This is a vicious debt cycle that if you were an individual in debt, you would be sent to debt counsellor.  Perhaps the government needs a debt counsellor.  You cannot keep spending on your credit card to meet payments due on other debts.

We have called next Wednesday’s Budget, the Doomsday Budget.  A peacetime D-Day is coming, and we expect an invasion of the wealthy, landlords and self-employed/partnerships in addition to allowances being frozen.