British Finance Minister Rachel Reeves is likely to free up 10 billion to 20 billion pounds ($13.1 billion to $26.2 billion) of space to borrow for capital investment by revising the technical definitions underlying the government’s fiscal rules, The Guardian reported on Tuesday.
Reeves will deliver Labor’s first budget since its election victory in July on October 30. He promises to help Britain’s economy grow faster through careful fiscal management and government spending on infrastructure that encourages more private sector investment.
The Guardian reported, citing unnamed Reeves allies, that she would likely exclude the government’s losses from the Bank of England’s past bond-buying programs when calculating the debt.
Reeves would also exclude any additional borrowing used to create new public entities, according to the report.
Last month she hinted that she would give the government more leeway to borrow, but she gave no details of how she would do that. Economists see a range of options, and the Treasury Department has not indicated a preference.
The possibility of more borrowing has caught the attention of financial markets given Britain’s already high level of debt and Reeves’ dire warnings about the health of the government’s finances that her government inherited.
The Treasury Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.
($1 = 0.7634 pounds)
