For immediate release

Responding to Andy Burnham’s first speech in the Commons as prime minister John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said:

"Andy Burnham talks big about his theory of growth, but his plans are just the same old tax-and-spend policies that have punished taxpayers for generations.“The prime minister’s obsession with state ownership and five-year plans will ensure that ‘growth’ remains only a theory. 

“If this new government wishes to deliver growth and provide real economic change, they urgently need to get spending and borrowing under control.

TPA spokespeople are available for live and pre-recorded broadcast interviews via 07795 084 113 (no texts)

Media contact:

William Yarwood
Campaigns Director, TaxPayers' Alliance
william.yarwood@taxpayersalliance.com
24-hour media hotline: 07795 084 113 (no texts)

Notes to editors:

1. Founded in 2004 by Matthew Elliott and Andrew Allum, the TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) campaigns to reform taxes and public services, cut waste and speak up for British taxpayers. Find out more at www.taxpayersalliance.com.
2. TaxPayers' Alliance's research council.

The government has pledged a rewiring of the state, transferring powers, functions and resources away from Whitehall and towards regional and local government.[1] At the centre of that programme is an ambition for central government itself to become “smaller and more strategic”, focused on those functions that are best performed at a national level rather than duplicating activity that can be undertaken elsewhere.[2]

That ambition puts renewed focus on the size, shape and functions of the civil service. Civil servants turn ministerial decisions into policy and deliver services across the country. In this note, the civil service refers to the home civil service, covering UK government departments and agencies, as well as the Scottish and Welsh governments, but excluding the separate Northern Ireland civil service and the wider public sector. How those staff are distributed, between departments, grades, professions and regions, therefore provides an important indication of how the machinery of government has evolved and the resources committed to running it. The latest figures show that civil service headcount was more than 8,000 higher than a year earlier and a third higher than in 2016. The government is therefore embarking on its proposed rewiring of the state after a decade of substantial civil service expansion.

This note, the fourth iteration in the series, examines that expansion between 2016 and 2026, looking at changes in overall headcount, seniority, pay, professional functions and the geographical distribution of civil servants. In doing so, it assesses the scale of the change that has taken place and provides a baseline against which this government’s ambition for a smaller, more strategic and less centralised state can be judged.

Key findings

• Between March 2016 and March 2026 civil service employment increased by 139,485, from 418,340 to 557,825 or 33.3 per cent. This compares to 9.4 per cent headcount growth across the total public sector in the same period.
• Since March 2025, the number of civil servants has increased by 8,165 or 1.5 per cent, from 549,660 to 557,825. This is 2.5 times more than the total public sector headcount growth of 0.6 per cent in the same period.
• The median civil servant salary increased by 6 per cent, or £2,140, between March 2025 and March 2026, almost double the level of inflation.[3] All grades saw an increase in their median salary that was above the rate of inflation over this period, except senior civil servants whose increase was 0.1 percentage points lower than the level of inflation.
• The number of civil servants with salaries of at least £100,000 increased by 268.3 per cent between 2016 and 2026, from 1,090 to 4,015. Between 2025 and 2026, the number of civil servants receiving salaries of at least £100,000 increased by 510 or 14.6 per cent.
• As of March 2026 there were 150 civil servants receiving a salary of at least £175,000, more than the prime minister’s salary entitlement in 2025-26.[4] This includes 50 drawing more than £200,000 in salary, 42.9 per cent more than the previous year and 400 per cent more than 2016.
• As of March 2026, London has the largest civil service headcount with 107,810, followed by the North West with 75,330 and Scotland with 57,800.
• Since 2016, the North West has recorded the largest increase in its share of the civil service workforce, rising from 12.4 per cent to 13.5 per cent between March 2016 and March 2026.
• In nominal terms, the North West recorded the second largest increase in civil service headcount between March 2016 and March 2026, rising by 23,640, or 45.7 per cent. Only London saw a larger increase, adding 29,580 civil servants over the period, equivalent to growth of 37.8 per cent.
• In 2025-26, 4,910 more staff entered the civil service than left it, marking the tenth consecutive year in which inflows exceeded outflows. Of the 37,945 civil servants that left, only 9.4 per cent, or 3,555, were dismissed.
• While the number of employees in the top three grades increased by 3 per cent from March 2025 to March 2026 (85.2 per cent since 2016), administrative officers and assistants – the most junior grade – fell by 0.6 per cent since 2025 (15.3 per cent or 23,535 since 2016).
• The total cost of civil service salaries in 2026 is estimated to be £22,514,896,500, an increase of 6.5 per cent from 2025 and 95 per cent since 2016, significantly outpacing the nominal growth of the UK economy during those periods.[5]

[1] Cabinet Office, Rewiring the State – Cabinet Statement, 2026, pp.1-2.

[2] Ibid, p.6.

[3] Office for National Statistics, Consumer price inflation, UK: March 2026, 22 April 2026, www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/bulletins/consumerpriceinflation/march2026 (accessed 31 July 2026).

[4] Shaw, S., How much does the prime minister get paid?, Yahoo Finance, 23 July 2026, finance.yahoo.com/economy/policy/articles/much-does-prime-minister-paid-165840124.html (accessed 5 August 2026).

[5] Office for National Statistics, GDP at current prices – real-time database (YBHA); Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2026, quarterly national accounts edition of this dataset, 30 June 2026, www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/datasets/realtimedatabaseforukgdpybha (accessed 5 August 2026).

EMBARGOED: 19:00 Sunday 30th August 2026

• TaxPayers’ Alliance finds that civil service headcount has grown at three times the rate of the rest of the public sector, up by 33.3 per cent. 
• Average salaries increased by 6 per cent last year, leading to a total wage bill of £22.5bn in 2026. This is almost double what it was a decade ago.
• As of March 2026, there were 150 civil servants receiving a salary of at least £175,000, more than the prime minister’s salary entitlement in 2025-26.
• TPA warns that Whitehall is expanding too far, including into the North West, where the number of roles has already risen by 45.7 per cent since 2016.  

The TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) has revealed that the civil service has ballooned in size by one third in a decade.

Whitehall headcount increased by 33.3 per cent, or 139,485 roles, since 2016 compared to 9.4 per cent across the total public sector. The Whitehall workforce, totalling 557,825 in March 2026, has grown for ten consecutive years.

The new figures reveal the extent of mandarin mollycoddling, with median civil servant pay increasing by 6 per cent, or £2,140, between March 2025 and March 2026, almost double the level of inflation.

The total cost of civil service salaries in 2026 is estimated to be £22,514,896,500, an increase of 6.5 per cent from 2025 and 95 per cent since 2016. This means the Whitehall wage bill has almost doubled, significantly outpacing the nominal growth of the UK economy and the incomes of many ordinary taxpayers.

Frontline operational delivery staff, such as Jobcentre Plus staff who are included in the total civil service figures, shrank in nominal terms as well as as a percentage of civil service employees. Meanwhile, the number of people working in communications and policy roles both rose, up by 63.9 per cent and 117.4 per cent respectively since 2016.

The TPA has raised concerns about likely grade inflation, which is seeing increasing numbers of civil servants given senior roles. While the number of bureaucrats in the top three grades has increased by 85.2 per cent since 2016, the number in the most junior grade (including administrative officers and assistants) actually fell by 15.3 per cent. This had led to suggestions of overpromotion in mandarin middle management, where individuals are automatically moved up over time regardless of performance.

As a result, the number of civil servants with salaries of at least £100,000 increased by 268.3 per cent between 2016 and 2026, from 1,090 to 4,015. This increased by  510 just last year. As of March 2026, there were 150 civil servants receiving a salary of at least £175,000, more than the prime minister’s salary entitlement in 2025-26.

The TPA is warning prime minister Andy Burnham that creating roles in the North of England is unlikely to get a grip on Whitehall growth. The North West, home of Greater Manchester, has itself seen a boom in bureaucrats, with the second largest increase in headcount since March 2016, rising by 23,640 or 45.7 per cent. Even before Burnham entered Downing Street, 13.5 per cent of civil servants were already based in the North West.

With Whitehall already expanding too far, the TaxPayers’ Alliance is calling on ministers to cull the growth and commit to a ‘one-up two-down’ rule, which requires every new role in the North of England to be met by a cut of two senior civil service jobs in London. This would prevent the proliferation of ‘non-jobs’ at No 10 North while reducing mandarin middle management in Whitehall.    

[READ THE FULL BRIEFING NOTE HERE]

Key findings 

• Between March 2016 and March 2026 civil service employment increased by 139,485, from 418,340 to 557,825 or 33.3 per cent. This compares to 9.4 per cent headcount growth across the total public sector in the same period.
• Since March 2025, the number of civil servants has increased by 8,165 or 1.5 per cent, from 549,660 to 557,825. This is 2.5 times more than the total public sector headcount growth of 0.6 per cent in the same period.
• The median civil servant salary increased by 6 per cent, or £2,140, between March 2025 and March 2026, almost double the level of inflation.  All grades saw an increase in their median salary that was above the rate of inflation over this period, except senior civil servants whose increase was 0.1 percentage points lower than the level of inflation.
• The number of civil servants with salaries of at least £100,000 increased by 268.3 per cent between 2016 and 2026, from 1,090 to 4,015. Between 2025 and 2026, the number of civil servants receiving salaries of at least £100,000 increased by 510 or 14.6 per cent.
• As of March 2026 there were 150 civil servants receiving a salary of at least £175,000, more than the prime minister’s salary entitlement in 2025-26.  This includes 50 drawing more than £200,000 in salary, 42.9 per cent more than the previous year and 400 per cent more than 2016.
• As of March 2026, London has the largest civil service headcount with 107,810, followed by the North West with 75,330 and Scotland with 57,800.
• Since 2016, the North West has recorded the largest increase in its share of the civil service workforce, rising from 12.4 per cent to 13.5 per cent between March 2016 and March 2026.
• In nominal terms, the North West recorded the second largest increase in civil service headcount between March 2016 and March 2026, rising by 23,640, or 45.7 per cent. Only London saw a larger increase, adding 29,580 civil servants over the period, equivalent to growth of 37.8 per cent.
• In 2025-26, 4,910 more staff entered the civil service than left it, marking the tenth consecutive year in which inflows exceeded outflows. Of the 37,945 civil servants that left, only 9.4 per cent, or 3,555, were dismissed.
• While the number of employees in the top three grades increased by 3 per cent from March 2025 to March 2026 (85.2 per cent since 2016), administrative officers and assistants – the most junior grade – fell by 0.6 per cent since 2025 (15.3 per cent or 23,535 since 2016).
• The total cost of civil service salaries in 2026 is estimated to be £22,514,896,500, an increase of 6.5 per cent from 2025 and 95 per cent since 2016, significantly outpacing the nominal growth of the UK economy during those periods. 

[READ THE FULL BRIEFING NOTE HERE]

Darwin Friend, research director at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said:

“The civil service is no longer a sleek Rolls-Royce, but a mammoth oil tanker drifting towards disaster. 

“The explosion in the number of mandarin middle managers has brought Whitehall to a standstill and leaves even the most powerful prime ministers unable to get anything done or control costs for taxpayers.

“Instead of giving the green light for more growth, particularly in the North, Andy Burnham must demand that the overall number of senior civil servants comes down.”   

Responding to the research, Alex Burghart MP, Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, said: 

"This analysis shows Whitehall is trying to do too much, in too many places, and at too great a cost. 

"The Prime Minister needs to get a grip. No 10 North is a gimmick, but the deeper problem is a model of government that continually expands, rewards poor performance and struggles to deliver basic public services.  

“The civil service is not a failure, but it has become too big to succeed. This research from the TaxPayers' Alliance reminds us that Whitehall needs to be cut down to size."

TPA spokespeople are available for live and pre-recorded broadcast interviews via 07795 084 113 (no texts)

Media contact:

William Yarwood
Campaigns Director, TaxPayers’ Alliance
william.yarwood@taxpayersalliance.com
24-hour media hotline: 07795 084 113 (no texts)

Notes to editors:

1. Founded in 2004 by Matthew Elliott and Andrew Allum, the TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) campaigns to reform taxes and public services, cut waste and speak up for British taxpayers. Find out more at www.taxpayersalliance.com.
2. TaxPayers' Alliance's research council.
3. See here for the previous note in the series on the growth of the civil service.

Responding to the latest air passenger duty numbers, Darwin Friend, research director of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said:

"Taxpayers are being hammered by a departure tax that is rising far faster than passenger numbers.

“APD receipts have hit a record £4.6 billion, and ministers are still lining up another increase next year, making family breaks more expensive.
 
“The government should stop treating flights as a cash cow and cut this punitive tax on holidaymakers."

TPA spokespeople are available for live and pre-recorded broadcast interviews via 07795 084 113 (no texts)

Media contact:

William Yarwood
Campaigns Director, TaxPayers' Alliance
william.yarwood@taxpayersalliance.com
24-hour media hotline: 07795 084 113 (no texts) 

Notes to editors:

1. Founded in 2004 by Matthew Elliott and Andrew Allum, the TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) campaigns to reform taxes and public services, cut waste and speak up for British taxpayers. Find out more at www.taxpayersalliance.com
2. TaxPayers' Alliance's research council.
3. The TaxPayers' Alliance has recently released research that estimates the scale of taxes on holidays and the overall burden they place on British holidaymakers.
4. The TaxPayers' Alliance has long called for the abolition of APD on EEA and domestic flights.
5. To see the full air passenger duty bulletin, click here.

By Charles Amos, Political Commentator

In 1850 Herbert Spencer published Social Statics with a chapter entitled ‘The Right to Ignore the State’ which defended the individual’s right to opt out of paying all taxation in exchange for receiving no state services whatsoever. Although most people and economists concerned about public goods will balk at this radical idea, a limited right to opt out of state services could improve the efficiency of public services.

What this idea speaks to is the lack of competition that underlines the public sector. Too often taxpayers are not receiving value for money from the services that the state provides. A push towards a more competitive landscape emulating a privatised model would address some of the deficiencies that taxpayers are currently forced to endure. 

Many state services including education, leisure centres and state pensions are private goods which are both excludable and rivalrous and hence can be provided efficiently by a free market. Insofar as they are provided by the state, they are likely to be worse due to the absence of competition, politically expedient underinvestment, and excessive subsidy. 

Only consider Britain’s formerly nationalised industries. Post privatisation the productivity per worker skyrocketed in Rolls Royce by 74 per cent, in BT by 100 per cent and in British Coal by 341 per cent, showing how dismal their situation was before. 

In 1956 Charles Tiebout argued that local government could provide state services efficiently because any substantial increase in taxation above the proper cost to produce state services would result in migration and corresponding tightening of the inefficient councils’ budgets forcing them to be better, and expansion of the efficient councils’ budgets with more residents. As well as ensuring efficiency, Tiebout sorting also allows people to reveal their preferences insofar as popular mix providers attract new residents expanding their tax bases at the expense of poor mix providers. If you don’t like your council’s level of efficiency or mix of services, you can ultimately leave. 

The Tiebout model most accurately explains dense urban areas where the cost of moving between local authorities is small. Ultimately, however, one difficulty is that the migratory pressure is not that strong elsewhere because it is going to take a lot for some people with friends, family and work in their town to move because the bins are too expensive and they’d rather not pay for a local leisure centre they never use. 

One way to ensure local government generally can be properly subject to the pressure Tiebout writes about is to allow people within their localities to simply opt out of certain services. It would be easy to have a register of taxpayers who have paid for the local leisure centre, library and lidos and exclude those who aren’t on it. 

At the national level too, people could opt out of state education, pensions and much of healthcare as well. All of this would discourage politicians from delivering terrible services as people could just leave the state services and have their money back instead. Not every state service could be opted out of like this while ensuring efficiency because some are public goods are nonexcludable including national defence, policing and public health for example, meaning, if people could opt out, everyone would, since they’ll receive the benefit of them regardless. 

The public sector, including local authorities, have failed taxpayers for years. Taxpayers are consistently left frustrated by politicians and face the prospect of tax rises year after year, principally on the local level, council tax.  

The services that the council provides should match the tax increases that residents face. Tax after tax has piled on leading to a record high tax burden. When the cost of living hits as it has over the past few years, residents will question if they truly need all the supposed services that the local authority, or more broadly, the national government provides. Especially since all the services that are provided tend to be sub standard. 

A more privatised market mindset must be adopted across the public sector if services are to be improved. If competition is what it takes, councils must be afforded tax and spending powers which allow for consumer choice across councils. Alternatively, residents could be afforded the choice over what services they support to ensure that services improve to meet taxpayer’s expectations. However, the status quo cannot continue. Tax after tax has followed failure after failure. The public sector must do better.

Last Year my article for Taxpayers’ Alliance entitled ‘Wish You Weren't Here’ set out arguments against the introduction of an across the board second home council tax premium of 100 per cent by Northumberland County Council (NCC) built on little more than ideological, if somewhat coastal, sand. What follows captures both my continued exasperation with that authority in a sequel of sorts. Much of this personal story doubtless resonates with what other second home owners have experienced elsewhere in the UK.

There was a time when the council tax being charged wasn't divorced from the services received. Such accountability no longer exists, not in Northumberland anyway, where it is maintained that council tax is both ‘not service specific’ and ‘not linked directly to  any services you may or may not receive’.  Second home owners now have to stump up twice as much for nothing extra in return simply because they are deemed guilty of adding to the current housing crisis, both in terms of its supply and affordability. 

This unsubstantiated argument serves to do two main things: to add substantially to council coffers while simultaneously deflecting blame away from the real culprits… Local Authorities and Central Government. The housing crisis is real, its alleged cause is not.  As argued in my previous piece, other countries in Europe have a far better record of matching their housing stock to domestic needs while at the same time having far higher levels of second home ownership than here. Failure to build more houses and pronounced demographic change are the main contributory factors behind our current malaise. 

Northumberland, like many other Local Authorities, rushed to obtain this new source of unearned income and in their case expected it to add just over £7.5m in the first year while the actual sum collected was £5.7m. A large sum drawn from 2,812 second homes receiving no additional benefits and without any direct obligation to use these funds to address alleged housing  issues. 

The shortfall between expected and actual additional income was represented by the number of second homes legally exempted from the premium by being placed on the sale or rental market, around 15 per cent of total. This was part of NCC’s attempt to add to principal residency supply by making second homes increasingly unaffordable in the hope they would make the Northumberland housing market more affordable without thinking through the unintended consequences of such a draconian policy. 

It is ironic, and an example of Northumberland’s own hubris, that they felt entitled to ‘encourage’ second home owners in how they should use or dispose of their own properties while the Council itself faced condemnation from the Regulator of Social Housing with regard to the administration of its own housing stock. 

In the intervening months since my last article I have continued to press the Local Authority for justification of its adoption and implementation of a second homes premium. Was the decision based on established evidence and sound reasoning or were they just chasing the money and blindly following other Local Authorities by employing the same false narrative? I suspected the latter and now find no reason to think otherwise.  

My key charges remain that, firstly, the Council has been remiss in failing to provide an impact assessment prior to implementation of said policy while also, secondly, not fully engaging, consulting and communicating directly with affected second home owners. The Secretary of State had set out the Government’s Guidance on the implementation of the council tax premiums on long-term empty homes and second homes in November 2024. NCC appear adamant that this offers mere guidance, having already determined their policy prior to its original publication. While they continued to obfuscate over whether any impact assessment had taken place they believe it was enough to provide stakeholders with advanced notification of the proposed premium being introduced via communication in one specific newspaper on a given day. They were most insistent that they had total discretion within all of this and that they had legitimately used the powers given to them. 

I continued a lengthy, and in hindsight largely futile  email correspondence with Northumberland, both its officers and responsible politicians, directed at ascertaining if they had carried out an impact assessment before implementation or even subsequently.  There was a reluctance to answer this simple question and nearly all had to be chased up a number of times to obtain a response. 

The answers I did receive either addressed questions I didn't ask or only repeated the false narrative that second home owners were the problem without providing any real evidence to sustain their position or any measurable metrics based framework for appraising or tracking the policy’s success or failure. The Council never met its own or statutory deadlines in addressing my concerns and was at best largely dismissive. For over thirteen months I endeavoured to obtain an answer to my simple question of whether they had carried out an impact assessment before implementing their second homes premium policy but to no avail.

Given I was getting nowhere, my final recourse was to submit a FOI request to NCC, who I subsequently had to refer to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) given the Council’s abject failure to provide me with the legally required response within the statutory time limit (even after I had again chased them up). Once the ICO got in touch with them they answered immediately. Not only conceding that ‘an impact assessment was not carried out’ but that it ‘would be carried out once the premium had been implemented as there would be statistics available then’. 

In their response (dated 22nd May 2026) they also informed me that ‘the impact assessment is currently underway’ even though it was now more than three years since Full Council had originally decided to implement the policy. They had clearly put the cart before the horse and blindly charged ahead regardless. It was not a decision made after full consideration of the evidence but prior to gathering it. Another irony is that the person from the Council who responded to my FOI impact assessment query was the same person I first asked the question of more than a year earlier. A great deal of effort would have been spared if the confession had been made then. I had to point out to the Council that this was not following the usual protocol of an FOI response, coming from Revenues rather than Information Governance, who had to  apologise for both the delay in their response and ‘the recent error in which we responded in an incorrect format’. 

Of course, the FOI response merely confirmed what I had suspected all along. Months prior to receiving that response I had emailed key members of the Council Executive and its Monitoring Officer in light of the Warwick District Council decision (in December 2025) to refund second home owners the 100 per cent premium they had been charged. Their Monitoring Officer deemed it had been collected unlawfully without properly assessing the impact on the local community and economy. His argument that it had applied the second home council tax premium without paying full and due regard to the guidance issued by the Secretary of State requiring councils to ‘carefully consider’ whether to charge a premium and assess possible impacts alongside consultation and engagement with key stakeholders was not as robust as it should have been clearly echoed the failings I had raised about NCC’s own implementation of this policy.

My seeking assurance from the Council that they had fully met the guidance from the Secretary of State following Warwick’s decision was not addressed. The response on behalf of the Council Executive was remarkably swift, in terms of the usual timekeeping, with pushback that it would be inappropriate to provide commentary on the lawfulness of Council policy by correspondence, that it had provided all the information it is able, and it would not enter into any further correspondence regarding this. At least I received a timely reply. 

The same could not be said for the Monitoring Officer. From my dealings with the Council I had been well used to their setting deadlines then not meeting them and then wrongly redirecting me elsewhere, usually off into the ether. This sadly was also the case with the Monitoring Officer, having to be chased up several times before redirecting me from Legal Services to Transactional Services then nothing. This was a strange, and subsequently fruitless, redirection especially in light of the Council Executive response acknowledging the matter I was raising related to ‘a Council-wide policy decision rather than the delivery of a service’ as well as  the legal aspect already alluded to regarding ‘the lawfulness of Council policy’. 

Some may say I was expecting too much and placing undue burden on a hard-pressed Council. Given, as the Taxpayers’ Alliance itself pointed out, six of the top ten North East Council highest earners are employed by Northumberland while their Monitoring Officer is one of the highest paid officials in that role anywhere (allegedly on the grounds that he has much to do), I should have expected more.  The unjustified burden falls alas on the second home owners as the Council reap an undeserved reward. While Northumberland County Council continue to show unfounded and targeted discrimination against second home owners (making up less than 2 per cent of households) I am certain we second home owners, especially those of long standing, have better established grounds to be more critical of them and deserve far better.  They may wish we weren't here but we wish they weren't here too. 

This summer, millions of British families will head off for a well-earned holiday. Yet whether travelling abroad or staying in the UK, holidaymakers face a growing range of taxes before and during their trip. The UK already ranks 113th out of 119 countries for tourism price competitiveness in the World Economic Forum’s 2024 Travel and Tourism Development Index, with industry groups pointing to high VAT rates, the abolition of VAT free shopping, rising aviation taxes and visa costs as factors making the UK a comparatively expensive destination for visitors.[1]

Despite these concerns, the tax burden on holidays could increase further. The King’s Speech 2026 announced the overnight visitor levy bill which would give mayors in England the power to introduce additional charges on overnight visitors staying in hotels, guesthouses, holiday lets and other forms of accommodation.[2]

Air passenger duty (APD) is the most direct tax faced by holidaymakers travelling overseas, but it is only one part of the overall burden. Holidaymakers also pay VAT on purchases made before travelling, insurance premium tax (IPT) on travel insurance, VAT on accommodation, food and entertainment, and fuel duty on travel within the UK. This note estimates the scale of these taxes and the overall burden they place on British holidaymakers.

Key findings

• British holidaymakers paid an estimated £4.8 billion in taxes on holidays in 2024.
• In 2024, taxes added an estimated £55 to the cost of an overseas holiday and £53 to the cost of a domestic overnight holiday.
• APD raised an estimated £1.2 billion from overseas holiday flights taken by UK residents in 2024.
• VAT on purchases made before travelling abroad generated an estimated £1.7 billion in 2024, making it the largest single source of holiday tax revenue identified in this note.
• Taxes embedded in domestic overnight holiday spending raised an estimated £1.7 billion in 2024, including VAT on accommodation, food, shopping and entertainment, as well as fuel duty and VAT on travel.
• A family of four taking a holiday to Florida could face over £300 in holiday-related taxes, including APD, VAT on pre-holiday purchases and IPT.
• A family of four taking a week-long self-catering holiday in Cornwall could face over £300 in taxes through VAT and fuel duties, rising to over £370 if a £2.50 per person per night visitor levy were introduced.
• A potential nationwide flat rate £2.50 overnight visitor levy could increase the tax burden on domestic holidays by almost £270 million a year and would make the tax burden on domestic holidays per holidaymaker higher than the burden on holidays abroad.

[1] World Travel and Tourism Council, Invest Now or Pay the Price: UK Tourism Losing its Global Position, 20 January 2025, wttc.org/news/invest-now-or-pay-the-price-uk-tourism-losing-its-global-position (accessed 9 June 2026).

[2] HM Government, The King’s Speech 2026, Prime Minister’s Office, 2026, pp.40-41.

The author of this piece is a professional working in the City of London who wishes to remain anonymous

The TaxPayers’ Alliance has done some fantastic work on the costs that regulators are placing on businesses around the country and the burden this places on us employees who are forced to spend our time getting cosy with all the various regulations imposed upon us.

The FCA is the most notorious example in my industry of a regulator that keeps piling new initiatives and regulations onto our businesses. It routinely goes beyond its remit and implements new regulations which take staff away from their productive day jobs and turn our attention to the latest fad that the FCA wants us to adopt.

Usually, the regulation is hidden behind an innocent sounding title, but the connection to the core goal of “financial conduct” is spurious at best, or covered by a myriad of other regulators which already give us enough grief as it is.

The FCA’s non-financial misconduct regulation is one of the most obvious examples of where it has overreached, with the regulator now acting as a social crusader rather than a financial regulator. Non-financial misconduct includes behaviour that is not clearly financial in nature, such as bullying, harassment and violence.

The justification for the regulation is that, when non-financial misconduct goes unchecked, it can harm individuals, firms and confidence in financial services. This is as spurious a connection to financial misconduct as any. By this logic, anything that could in future somewhat impact a small part of a financial firm should ultimately fall under the purview of the FCA’s authority.

While this is bad enough in theory and its justification wafer-thin, there are also practical implications.

One may be fooled into thinking that this is a problem for senior bosses or directors, but that the bulk of the organisation is unaffected. Alternatively, one might assume that this is simply a tick-box exercise where everyone rolls their eyes and moves on.

My experience is that it is not quite that simple.

HR departments and compliance officers within companies have a duty to ensure that the company is protected against any retribution from the regulator. Therefore, to do their jobs, they have rolled out training across my company and I am sure similar schemes and training are being rolled out across the financial services.

For some personal context, my company introduced mandatory training going through the regulations, what is involved, what could be deemed a breach, and so on. This was nauseating enough. It was then followed by a test containing a list of questions to determine whether I understood that bullying is bad. I thought I had mastered that in primary school! 

Failure to pass the test would result in more training. Once was quite enough thank you!

I know not to harass people. I also know that, if I were to act inappropriately, I would be sacked in short order.

All in all, this training was a complete waste of my time. From beginning to end, it took me about an hour to complete.

In isolation, this may seem like a minor annoyance. Was it the end of the world for me? No.

However, across a company of 10,000 employees, that is a ten thousand hours of time taken away from productive work and wasted. Extrapolate this across financial services and the compliance cost only grows. It is difficult to calculate the financial cost of this, but there are no doubt significant financial implications.

When we zoom out and look at why the country is not growing economically, the government should start reining in its regulators and keeping them in line. There is room for regulators, but they routinely step out of bounds from their remit, and this has real-world implications for businesses. This must be stopped.

Embargoed: 19:00 14/08/2026

• New research from the TaxPayers' Alliance shows 10 days of sick leave per year in local government, more than double the private sector average. 
• Of the £667 million lost to sickness in 2024-25, or £3 million lost every working day, approximately £176 million is mental health-related absence. 
• Councils spent £1.9 billion on agency and temporary staff in a single year, equivalent to more than £8.5 million per working day.
• The TaxPayers’ Alliance is calling for limits on agency use and for local government funding to be conditional on tackling high sickness absence. 

Read the full release here

The TaxPayers’ Alliance has revealed that millions of pounds are being lost every day to local authority absenteeism. Sickness absence is costing councils around £667 million every year, meaning taxpayers are losing around £3 million per working day. 

Freedom of information requests reveal town hall staff are taking twice as much sick leave as their private sector counterparts, and at least 30 per cent more than the average across the rest of the public sector. With an average of 10 days off sick each year between 2022-23 and 2024-25, council employees were taking more sick days than people working in construction, manufacturing and even health and social care jobs.    

Figures suggest that mental health now accounts for over one quarter of all local authority sickness absence. Council staff are invoking mental health as a reason for sickness absence at more than three times the national level, at a cost of £176 million in a single year. Costs have risen sharply since 2022-23, when it stood at around £128 million, and look set to rise further.  

With a total of 9 million working days lost across a single year, town halls are missing out on the equivalent to 41,302 full time roles. This is the same size as the entire workforce of JD Wetherspoons. The report finds that poor management is often to blame, with Tower Hamlets suffering the worst sickness rates in London of 12.9 days lost per FTE employee, while nearby Bexley loses less than half of this at 5.3 days. 

One council in Northern Ireland, Fermanagh and Omagh, reported the highest average of 18.6 days lost, while Glasgow Council clocked up an astonishing 1.32 million days lost in total over three years, the highest in the country. Of these, 952,489 were due to ‘long term sickness’. 

Fenland District Council in Cambridgeshire saw the highest days lost due to mental health, making up more than half of their reported reasons for calling in sick. Fenland boasts of its “happy and motivated workforce”, offering benefits including a “generous” holiday allowance, car user allowance, discounted access to leisure facilities, eyesight tests, and the opportunity “to enjoy hybrid working.” Fenland’s “mental health first aiders” are expected to “deliver campaigns and fundraising activities to embed mental health awareness across the Council.”

In contrast, Ashfield, Canterbury, Liverpool and Thurrock recorded the lowest average number of sick days in their regions. Each lost less than 3 days, with Canterbury reporting just 0.1 days per full time equivalent.  

The TPA report warns that staffing issues are leading to a growing reliance on agency staff, costing £1.9 billion in a single year. Over a three year period, councils spent £5.5 billion on around 190,631 agency staff. Hackney Council admitted an average of 42 per cent of its workforce were from agency between 2022-23 and 2024-25. London councils tended to rely far more on agency staff than others.  

To combat the rising cost of agency staff, and the negative impacts on services to taxpayers, the TaxPayers’ Alliance and report author David Taylor are calling for firm limits on agency use, cutting out the use of recruitment firms and tightening sickness absence management, specifically by increasing the transparency of sickness data made available to the public. 

Given the growing focus on devolution, ministers should make improving sick day rates a precondition for any local authority requests for additional funding. 

Key findings 

• The average full time local government employee took 10 days of sick leave per year between 2022-23 and 2024-25, more than double the UK full time or private sector averages and at least 30 per cent more than the public sector average. This remained broadly consistent throughout the three-year period.
• Glasgow council had the highest number of days missed for sickness between 2022-23 and 2024-25 totalling 1,328,020 days over three years. The most was in 2022-23 with 448,183 days lost for sickness.
• Mental health sick days in 2024-25 accounted for 28 per cent of all council sick days, an increase from 25 per cent in 2022-23, with Northern Ireland having the largest regional average at 34 per cent. 
• Fenland had the highest percentage of sick days due to mental health with 57 per cent of sick days missed due to mental health in 2024-25. 
• Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales recorded the highest absences levels between 2022-23 and 2024-25. Northern Ireland averaged 16.4 sick days per full time equivalent (FTE) employee, while the South East had the lowest with 8 sick days per FTE on average.
• Councils spent £5.5 billion on agency and temporary staff between 2022-23 and 2024-25., with the average worker costing £29,032. This is the equivalent to a mid-grade salary.
• Birmingham council spent the most on agency staff between 2022-23 and 2024-25, totalling £237 million. The highest spend in a single year was £83.3 million spent by Birmingham council in 2023-24.
• On average, 9.4 per cent of the local government workforce was made up of agency staff between 2022-23 and 2024-25. This compares to 5.6 per cent of all employees across the wider UK economy on temporary contracts.
• Birmingham council also had the most agency workers staying for over two years with 890 in 2024-25.

Read the full release here

Shimeon Lee, policy analyst at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said:

“Local authorities are letting absenteeism spiral out of control.

“Council bosses cannot plead poverty while failing to manage their own staff, which leaves taxpayers with a multi-billion pound bill for lost working days and expensive temporary cover. 

“It's time for town halls to get a grip on staff sickness, cap expensive agency use, and prove they can get the most out of their existing workforce before demanding more cash."

David Taylor, report co-author and former Councillor, said:

"Local authorities cannot keep being held hostage by expensive staffing agencies, spending £8.5m of taxpayer's money every day. The huge variation in agency costs, and the percentage of staff on agency contracts, shows that the dependence is not inevitable. 

“Agency staff have a role to play in short-term cover, but many local authorities appear to have agency staff in post for years. This includes in senior positions. 

“They need to get a grip on recruitment and retention, build stronger in-house teams, and get costs down"

TPA spokespeople are available for live and pre-recorded broadcast interviews via 07795 084 113 (no texts)

Media contact:

Callum McGoldrick

Investigations Campaign Manager at the TaxPayers’ Alliance 

callum.mcgoldrick@taxpayersalliance.com

24-hour media hotline: 07795 084 113 (no texts)

Notes to editors:

1. Founded in 2004 by Matthew Elliott and Andrew Allum, the TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) campaigns to reform taxes and public services, cut waste and speak up for British taxpayers. Find out more at www.taxpayersalliance.com.
2. TaxPayers' Alliance's research council.
3. See here for Fenland Council's staff benefits including information on their ‘mental health first aiders’.

Local authorities across the UK say they are facing a funding crisis. Several have already issued section 114 notices, effectively declaring bankruptcy, whilst many others are lobbying government for emergency support and new revenue powers.[1] Councils argue that since spending reductions began in 2010, local government funding has fallen, particularly the revenue support grant. The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that core funding for English local authorities per person fell by 26 per cent in real terms between 2010-11 and 2019-20.[2]

Alongside a substantial drop in funding, local authorities have been given greater responsibilities over areas such as adult health and social care and public health, placing additional pressure on stretched budgets. Rising demand, wage inflation and staff shortages have left many authorities struggling to balance the books.

However, while councils attribute these pressures primarily to funding cuts, too little attention has been paid to inefficiencies within their own operations. One such area is staff sickness absence, which remains largely overlooked despite its significant cost.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance has previously examined public sector sickness absence at a national level. In May 2022, it revealed that the civil service lost £348.5 million worth of working time due to sickness absence in 2019-20.[3] A 2024 report found that the sickness absence rate in the public sector was 3.6 per cent, compared to 2.3 per cent in the private sector.[4] At that time, the total cost of civil servant sick days exceeded £459 million, almost equivalent to building a new hospital. If civil service sickness rates matched those of the private sector, nearly £55 million of working time could be recovered each year.[5]

The author’s experience as a councillor in Havering highlighted the scale of waste and inefficiency caused by staff absence at the local level. This issue was explored in a 2024 report, “How do you solve the local government sickness crisis?”,[6] which examined sickness absence and costs across London boroughs. The findings revealed significant disparities in performance between councils and raised wider questions about the impact of sickness absence on budgets and service delivery nationwide.

Building on those findings, this report expands the analysis to local authorities across the UK, quantifying the financial impact of sickness absence in councils. It examines trends over a three-year period, including regional variations and the growing role of mental health related absence.  At a time when councils are calling for exceptional financial support, tackling internal inefficiencies such as sickness absence is essential to protecting frontline services and delivering better value for taxpayers.

[1] Hoddinott, S, Local government section 114 (bankruptcy) notices, Institute for Government, 7 August 2024, www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainer/local-authority-section-114-notices (accessed 20 November 2025).

[2] Ogden, K. & Phillips, D., How have English councils’ funding and spending changed? 2010 to 2024, Institute for Fiscal Studies, 2024, p.3.

[3] Simmonds, S., Sickness absence in the public sector, TaxPayers’ Alliance, 2022, p.2.

[4] TaxPayers’ Alliance, Briefing: public sector sickness, 2024, p.1.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Taylor, D., How do you solve the local government sickness crisis?, TaxPayers’ Alliance, 20 November 2024, www.taxpayersalliance.com/how_do_you_solve_the_local_government_sickness_crisis (accessed 20 November 2025).

Tourist hotspots in Wales are about to be clobbered by the Welsh government's introduction of a holiday tax which will be levied against those wishing to stay overnight in a town, village or by the beach. The TPA has been raising awareness of this pernicious tax in places like Conwy and Anglesey.

Outside of Wales, the Labour government under Andy Burnham is introducing legislation that will enable regional mayors to levy a similar tax on overnight visitors to their towns and cities.

Podcast host Duncan Barkes is joined by the TPA's Benjamin Elks and Jonathan Eida to discuss the impact of such taxes and the devastating consequences it will have on UK tourism.

The higher education sector is no different to any other commercial organisation that depends on getting the public to keep buying their product. It is remarkably successful at driving up numbers with UCAS reporting a record number of offers given to UK students for 2026-27.

Yet this is despite the bad press of the student loan ‘rip-off’ scandal that blew up this year and endless stories of graduates not being able to get jobs. Even when graduates do, more often than not it is only minimum wage and nothing to do with what they have studied. 

So how are universities still managing to get queues snaking around the block to buy their degrees?

There are many reasons, not least of which is that the government is making it very easy to convert virtually any school leaver into a customer by giving out unlimited student loans, with no restriction on either subject matter of the course, or any minimum academic ability of the candidates. So the universities are given absolute freedom to offer whatever enticing courses they want to 17-year-olds, regardless of whether it will do them any good.

But there is something else going on as most of us, unconsciously or otherwise, dance along to the higher education sector’s tune that ‘everybody’ should aspire to go to university because it is supposedly essential to study for three more years to have a successful career. 

An insidious process of credentialisation, largely instrumented by the higher education sector themselves who stand to gain the most, has been working its way through society for the last three or four decades and there is a now mainstream notion that you are nobody without a degree, and that all non-manual jobs worth having need you to get a degree before you could possibly be considered for them.

I am sure that virtually all of us have been guilty of everyday prejudice against non-graduates as if they are inferior and most tell our own kids that getting a degree is the be-all-and-end-all. Moreover, far too many employers insist on only employing graduates for even the most basic of trainee jobs and treat non-graduates as the great unwashed.

But there are now signs of a political pushback against the dogma of mass higher education with noises that all school leavers should no longer be herded into university, but all of the parties are making the mistake of saying that while less should go to university, instead they should go into the trades as if there are only two choices, but that completely misses the nub of the problem.

Because the jobs that society needs its ambitious school levers to aspire to, fall into three broad categories, not just two and the third category does not genuinely need them to go to university as they can just as effectively go straight to work as a trainee and develop their career by working. What used to be known as just doing the job and not sitting in the classroom forking out a fortune to the educational institutions.

The first job category is for the highly academically able where gaining a degree is a useful mind-expanding exercise, whether the degree is connected, like medicine if you become a doctor, or unconnected for example, history where you go on to be a barrister. The second is for skilled manual workers to make and fix the domestic, commercial and public infrastructure.

The third category of potentially decent rewarding jobs with prospects, is the vast array of all the other non-manual skilled and managerial jobs like marketing, design, administration, logistics, middle management and the like. But we have drifted into thinking that all of these jobs, even at basic entry level, should be closed off to keen school leavers and only open to them if they first load themselves with debt by becoming graduates.

So Andy Burnham and his cronies need to start realising that the solution is to find pathways into good jobs for ambitious 18-year-olds, ready to enter the workforce as trainees, who do not want to become trades people or get into debt with a student loan. It should not be heresy to say that learning on the job can be far more productive than three more years in the classroom and even more so when as a graduate you are likely to end up in a job that is not even connected to your degree in any meaningful way. 

In fact, the vast majority of non-manual jobs could be performed perfectly well without getting a degree, if only employers would make trainee jobs available to school leavers with the employers helping develop and train them.

Mass higher education is creating a decay in society where school leavers are being promised the earth when they enrol in university by the commercially motivated higher education sector, only for them to end up disillusioned and jaded before they have even started out in life.

It is time for politicians to intervene to reign it in and drastically cap higher education numbers and introduce minimum academic entry standards to qualify for student loans. We need to revert to getting far more of our 18-year-old school leavers into work as trainees, whether they aspire to blue or white-collar work, and not allow them to sleepwalk into universities.

In the autumn, the chancellor will present his first budget. Alongside announcements on taxation and public spending for the upcoming financial year, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) will publish updated forecasts for the UK’s national debt, which is currently expected to reach almost £3.2 trillion in 2027-28.[1] This figure alone is more than the UK’s forecast gross domestic product (GDP) in 2026-27. However, it represents only part of the government’s financial commitments.

To provide a more complete assessment of the UK government’s liabilities, the government should regularly report the real national debt. This broader measure captures significant long-term liabilities that are not reflected in the whole of government accounts or monthly public sector finance statistics published by the Office for National Statistics. State pension and many public sector pension schemes are not recognised as formal liabilities because they are reported to match the period of entitlement.^[2] Taken together, the commitments are projected to total around £8.4 trillion in 2026-27.

The burden of servicing government debt has become increasingly difficult in recent years, driven by higher public spending following external shocks and policy decisions, together with persistently higher than target inflation and rising interest rates. Half of all conventional gilts now carry interest rates of 4 per cent or more,[3] while debt interest payments reached £109.3 billion in 2025-26 – almost twice the amount spent on defence in the same year.[4]^,[5] The scale of these liabilities poses a major challenge to the long-term sustainability of the public finances. A credible strategy for managing the government’s full range of obligations – not simply the headline measure of public debt – should therefore be an urgent priority to ensure public funds are directed towards public services rather the cost of servicing debt.

Key findings

• In 2026-27 the real national debt will be £11.7 trillion. This is more than the entire economic output of Africa, Central America, Oceania and Singapore combined.^[6],[7],[8]
• The real national debt, in 2026-27, is equivalent to almost four times the size of the UK economy or 369 per cent of forecast nominal GDP.
• The government’s preferred debt measure, public sector net financial liabilities (PSNFL), significantly understates the burden facing taxpayers. In 2026-27, the real national debt is more than four times larger than the official forecast.
• On a per household basis, the real national debt will equate to £402,946 in 2026-27. On a per person basis, it will be £168,184.
• Repaying £1 million every hour, it would still take someone 1,334 years to exhaust the real national debt, meaning the repayment would have needed to begin in the year 692, during the Anglo-Saxon period, for it all to be gone by 2026.

[1] Office for Budget Responsibility, Public finances databank – June 2026, 22 June 2026, obr.uk/docs/dlm_uploads/PSF_aggregates_databank_Jun-5.xlsx (accessed 6 July 2026).

[2] HM Treasury, Whole of Government Accounts year ended 31 March 2021, 2023, p. 15.

[3] United Kingdom Debt Management Office, Gilts in Issue, www.dmo.gov.uk/data/pdfdatareport?reportCode=D1A (accessed 6 July 2026).

[4] Office for Budget Responsibility, Public finances databank – June 2026, 22 June 2026, obr.uk/docs/dlm_uploads/PSF_aggregates_databank_Jun-5.xlsx (accessed 6 July 2026).

[5] Kirk-Wade, E., UK defence spending, House of Commons Library, 2025, p.12.

[6] International Monetary Fund, GDP, current prices: Purchasing power parity; billions of international dollars, 2026, www.imf.org/external/datamapper/PPPGDP@WEO/OEMDC/ADVEC/WEOWORLD/CHN/AFQ/AZQ (accessed 6 July 2026).

[7] OFX, Historical exchange rates, www.ofx.com/en-gb/forex-news/historical-exchange-rates/ (accessed 6 July 2026).

[8] The average yearly exchange rate against the US dollar for sterling was 0.743861 on 6 July 2026.

Embargoed: 19:00 07/08/2026

• TaxPayers’ Alliance revealed this week that public sector debt had breached £3 trillion. But these official figures do not include long-term, hidden debts. 
• Official metrics exclude £8.6 trillion in unfunded state and public sector pension commitments, PFI contracts, and nuclear cleanup costs, bringing the real national debt to £11.7 trillion. This equates to £402,946 per household or £168,184 per person, 
• Paying back £1 million every hour, it would take 1,334 years to pay off. The campaign group is urging ministers to bring down this enormous bill. 

The TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) today reveals the true extent of Britain’s borrowing boom, with hidden liabilities boosting our real national debt to £11.7 trillion. 

TPA analysis for the Daily Telegraph this week confirmed that public sector debt has breached £3 trillion for the first time. However, new figures reveal that this official metric represents only the tip of the iceberg facing British taxpayers.

The ‘Real National Debt’ includes uncounted bills such as unfunded state and public sector pension commitments, PFI contracts, and nuclear cleanup costs. Together this adds £8.6 trillion to the national debt, a hidden debt bill about the size of the entire economy of Africa. This takes the total to £11.7 trillion of debt in 2026-27, four times higher than official figures. 

This £11.7 trillion debt is more than the likely combined value of every single building in Britain, and greater than the combined annual economic output of Africa, Central America, Oceania, and Singapore.

If totalled in £1 coins, the real national debt:

• Would be equal in weight to 17 Great Pyramids of Giza; 309 Empire State Buildings; 1,955 Titanic ships; or 10,125 Eiffel Towers.
• Would completely fill the Royal Albert Hall over 200 times. 
• Would would completely cover greater London three times over with every coin laid flat  

Paying back £1 million every hour, it would take 1,334 years to pay off. This means the repayment would have needed to begin in the year 692, during the Anglo-Saxon period, for it all to be gone by 2026.

As Chancellor John Healey prepares the first budget of Andy Burnham’s premiership, the TPA is urging ministers to bring down the enormous debt bills being left for our children and grandchildren.  

Key findings

• In 2026-27 the real national debt will be £11.7 trillion. This is more than the entire economic output of Africa, Central America, Oceania and Singapore combined.
• The real national debt, in 2026-27, is equivalent to almost four times the size of the UK economy or 369 per cent of forecast nominal GDP.
• The government’s preferred debt measure, public sector net financial liabilities (PSNFL), significantly understates the burden facing taxpayers. In 2026-27, the real national debt is more than four times larger than the official forecast.
• On a per household basis, the real national debt will equate to £402,946 in 2026-27. On a per person basis, it will be £168,184.
• Repaying £1 million every hour, it would still take someone 1,334 years to exhaust the real national debt, meaning the repayment would have needed to begin in the year 692, during the Anglo-Saxon period, for it all to be gone by 2026.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE BRIEFING NOTE

John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said:

“These staggering figures expose the true scale of Britain’s borrowing boom.  

“Public sector debt is out of control but adding inevitable bills, like unfunded pension commitments, reveals the real extent of the debt we are passing down to our children and grandchildren.   

“The new chancellor needs to curb these commitments for the sake of generations of future British taxpayers.” 

TPA spokespeople are available for live and pre-recorded broadcast interviews via 07795 084 113 (no texts)

Media contact:

Callum McGoldrick

Investigations Campaign Manager, TaxPayers' Alliance

callum.mcgoldrick@taxpayersalliance.com  

24-hour media hotline: 07795 084 113 (no texts)

Notes to editors:

1. Founded in 2004 by Matthew Elliott and Andrew Allum, the TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) campaigns to reform taxes and public services, cut waste and speak up for British taxpayers. Find out more at www.taxpayersalliance.com.
2. TaxPayers' Alliance's research council.
3. On Thursday 6th August, the TaxPayers Alliance revealed in the Daily Telegraph that public sector net debt had passed £3 trillion. The TPA Debt Clock, which tracks public sector net debt, is available here: https://debt-clock.org/

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

• Britain’s debt has now crossed the £3 trillion threshold, according to TaxPayers’ Alliance estimates, and is rising by £4,270 per second or £369 million per day. 
• Public sector net debt took 11 years to grow from £1 trillion to £2 trillion in the 2010s, but just 6 years to grow from £2 trillion in 2020 to £3 trillion today. 
• Households are facing a debt burden of £103,438 before pensions and other liabilities are included, meaning the real national debt is likely to be far higher. 

Britain’s public sector debt now exceeds £3 trillion, according to the TaxPayers’ Alliance’s (TPA) debt clock. Using figures from the Office for Budget Responsibility and Office for National Statistics, the TPA estimates that debt is increasing by £4,270 per second or £369 million every single day.

With high levels of public spending in recent years, Britain accumulated £1 trillion of debt in just six years between 2020 and 2026, while it took 11 years to borrow the same amount in the decade before. Every household is now saddled with over £103,438 of public sector debt.   

Government debt figures include anticipated pay outs on assets like student loans and shares in private companies, disguising the extent of Britain's borrowing boom. The previous public sector net debt (PSND) figures track debt more accurately and reveal a public sector debt burden of £43,174 per person and £103,438 per household. 

Even these figures do not include hidden debts like state and public sector pension liabilities, meaning the real national debt is likely to be far higher. 

TPA tallies of PSND suggest new prime minister Andy Burnham inherits one of the worst public sector debts on record. Tony Blair came into office owing £352.5 billion, while David Cameron began the Coalition Government with £1.03 trillion of debt. Burnham’s £3 trillion debt burden even dwarfs those of Boris Johnson (£1.81 trillion) and Rishi Sunak (£2.44 trillion) at the start of their premierships. 

The TPA has been campaigning to bring down the national debt since July 2024, when it launched a digital debt clock, allowing taxpayers to track debt levels in real time. 

Click here to view the Debt Clock

John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said:

"Households will be horrified to find themselves on the hook for more than £100,000 of debt incurred by successive governments.

“Despite repeated warnings, politicians have allowed the national debt to run out of control and increase to levels unthinkable even a decade ago. “If Andy Burnham is serious about ushering in a new economic model, he should do it without creating a bigger bill for our children and grandchildren to pay off.”

TPA spokespeople are available for live and pre-recorded broadcast interviews via 07795 084 113 (no texts)