David Cameron has received a ticking-off from the official statistics watchdog over his claim the Government was paying down Britain's debts.
The Prime Minister's assertion in last week's Conservative Party political broadcast sparked a furious complaint by Labour, which described his comments as "deliberately misleading", as the debt was actually rising.
Chair of the UK Statistics Authority Andrew Dilnot confirmed yesterday that public sector net debt has risen from £811 billion in 2010, when the coalition took office, to £1.1 trillion at the end of last year.
Responding to Labour's complaint, Mr Dilnot said it was important politicians distinguished correctly between accumulated debt, and annual public sector borrowing – which has come down.
"It is clearly important for all parties to public debate in this area to understand the relevant statistical definitions and to distinguish changes in the level of debt outstanding from changes in borrowing per period, and to reflect these in their communication of the statistical trends involved," he wrote.
"Public sector net debt is a measure of how much the UK public sector owes at a given time. Public sector net borrowing is the difference between total accrued receipts and total accrued (current and capital) expenditure over a specified period; this measure is frequently used by commentators to summarise the extent of any public sector deficit." He said he was sending a copy of the letter to Mr Cameron's chief of staff, Ed Llewellyn.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article