<P> As of Q1 (the first quarter of) 2015, UK government debt amounted to £ 1.56 trillion, or 81.58% of total GDP, at which time the annual cost of servicing (paying the interest) the public debt amounted to around £ 43 billion (which is roughly 3% of GDP or 8% of UK government tax income). Approximately a third of this debt is owned by the British government due to the Bank of England's quantitative easing programme, so approximately 1 / 3 of the cost of servicing the debt is paid by the government to itself, reducing the annual servicing cost to approximately £ 30 billion (approx 2% of GDP, approx 5% of UK government tax income). </P> <P> Due to the Government's significant budget deficit, the national debt is increasing by approximately £ 73.5 billion per annum, or around £ 1.4 billion each week . The Conservatives pledged in 2010 that they would eliminate the deficit by the 2015 / 16 financial year . However, by 2014 they admitted that the structural deficit would not be eliminated until the financial year 2017 / 18 . This forecast was pushed back to 2018 / 19 in March 2015, and to 2019 / 20 in July 2015, before the target of a return to surplus at any particular time was finally abandoned by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne in July 2016 . </P> <P> The UK national debt is the total quantity of money borrowed by the Government of the United Kingdom at any time through the issue of securities by the British Treasury and other government agencies . </P> <P> The UK national debt is often confused (even by politicians) with the government budget deficit (officially known as the Public Sector Net Cash Requirement (PSNCR)), which is the rate at which the government borrows money . The then Prime Minister David Cameron was reprimanded in February 2013 by the UK Statistics Authority for creating confusion between the two, by stating in a political broadcast that his administration was "paying down Britain's debts". In fact, his administration has been attempting to reduce the deficit, not the overall debt . The latter will continue to rise even if the deficit shrinks . </P>

Where did the uk national debt come from
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