Chris Leslie MP, Labour’s Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, responding to today’s public sector finance figures, said:

“Today’s figures are further evidence that George Osborne’s promise to balance the books by next year now lies in tatters.

“These figures are merely in line with budget forecasts that  borrowing is now expected to be £190 billion more than planned under this government.

“A deficit this year of £107.7 billion compared to the Chancellor’s claim in 2010 that it would be just £60 billion is the cost of the three damaging years of flatlining and falling living standards we have seen since the election.

“Labour will balance the books, get the current budget into surplus and the national debt falling as soon as possible in the next Parliament. We will get the deficit down in a fairer way, including by reversing David Cameron’s tax cut for the top one per cent of earners, and we will act to secure a strong and balanced recovery that delivers rising living standards for the many, not just a few at the top.”