Public debt in Britain swells

LONDON, Feb. 19 (UPI) -- Bank bailouts in Britain put the country's public debt between 70 percent and 100 percent of Britain's gross domestic product, the national data office said.

Bailing out the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds TSB added between $1.4 trillion and $2.1 trillion to the country's public debt, the Office for National Statistics reported.

The national data office said it added bailout debt to the national figure because "the Government (now) has the ability to control the respective banks' general corporate policy," The Times of London reported Thursday.

With financial systems still in turmoil, "it is frankly anyone's guess as to how high the public deficits may go over the next couple of years," economist Howard Archer at HIS Global Insight said.

Britain added $10 billion to its public debt between April 2007 and January 2008 and another $61 billion in the same period a year later.

"The public finances for January are terrible, coming in even worse than feared. January always sees a surplus on the public finances (as it is) a bumper month for tax receipts," Archer said.